VampireOLantern: Cullen Family Halloween Special
by Surviving Sheika
Summary: Halloween at the Cullens. Insanity ensues as Alice tries to make the Cullen family and Bella live out the sterotypical American Halloween. With candy, toilet paper and lots of eggs. *Warning: This story is all nonsense. Not for weak hearted* Rated T
1. Mischeif Night Comes Early

**Howdy y'all! We're very excited to bring you the first chapter of our latest Twilight-themed story: Vampire-O-Lanterns: A Cullen Family Halloween Special. Now this is just the first chapter and it will be the set-up for the rest of the story but we hope you enjoy it nonetheless. As you'll see a few certain someones are already getting into trouble in the name of Halloween. I'd like to thank my co-author for helping with the title and coming up with part of this chapter and some of the ideas for the coming chapters. "Do you have anything you want to say to the people who are reading this, *insert co-author's name*?" "Um, enjoy! Grab some candy! Sit in the car. Try not to get any caramel in your hair."**

**Once again we ask that people who think the characters are acting OOC or that this story is "too silly" we politely request that you not bother us. We're not writing this story to be published, we are simply two crazy girls who enjoy wreaking havok in the lives of the Cullens and Bella. Any people who wish to tell us that our story was funny or cute or anything along those lines, please, don't hesitate to review! Oh and all characters are (c) of Stephenie Meyer! Thanks!**

Chapter 1: Omelets Anyone?

Sometimes I like to imagine what it would be like if I wasn't friends with Alice or if she wasn't a vampire like the rest of the Cullens. I suppose even if she was human she would still have the same enthusiasm and love of fashion. This means that the only way I could have avoided this disaster was if I wasn't friends with Alice. But I was dating Edward and was very close with his entire family, which included Alice. In hindsight I really should have seen this coming.

It seemed like just an ordinary Wednesday. Boring classes, except for those I had with Edward, and lots of homework. Finally, though, it was lunchtime. This meant I got to see all the Cullens together for a period. I sat down next to Edward with my usual tray of food and caught the end of Alice's argument with the rest of the Cullens.

"All we need is to go to them and they won't be able to resist us! We'll pour on the charm and we'll be sure to get our way. Besides, it will be so much fun and you know Carlisle and Esme will enjoy it. And Rose you can come with me and I've got a bunch of great ideas."

I leaned over to Edward, "What's going on?"

"Alice is getting ready for Halloween."

"You guys celebrate?"

"I usually don't but Alice and Jasper seem to think it's their required duty to celebrate, being vampires and all. Rosalie and Emmett use it as an excuse to buy more clothes and disturbing outfits and Esme and Carlisle usually just get simple outfits and hand out candy."

I took a bite of pizza and watched Alice go back to pleading. Then she noticed me and smiled. "Bella are you excited for Halloween?"

"Nope. I don't celebrate it. I'll sit at home with a white sheet over my head and pretend to be a ghost while passing out candy to whoever comes to the house."

"Aw, you're dull. Why don't you spend Halloween with us?"

"Alice, why do you always-"

"Great! Now that you're on board I need your help. Mike is on the student council and I need you to convince him to let us have a costume contest that runs for a week."

"Why a week?"

"Because I can't decide on just one theme."

"Wait a minute, you guys are doing this, too," I asked, turning to look at Rosalie, Emmett and Jasper. "Even you, Edward?"

Edward grimaced. "I'm afraid I don't have a choice, love. Alice is blackmailing me. Or, more specifically, she's blackmailing you. And I won't stand for that! So I had to give in and sign us up for Alice's Halloween scheme."

"Edward, scheme is such an ugly word. I prefer master plan. As in, my master plan for world domination." She grinned evilly. I sighed, just another average day with the Cullens.

The rest of the period went by without much excitement, Alice was rambling on about her plans for brainwashing the student council, Rosalie was filing her nails, Jasper and Emmett were talking about something with video games or sports; I didn't really pay attention. And Edward and I sat and talked about our plans for this weekend; nothing new was happening but we were going to watch a movie and spend the day together, like always.

But I should have known that something terrible awaited me at the end of the day. The signs were all there, but I was in denial, refusing to believe that Alice would go through this. Refusing to accept the inevitable torture. But sure enough as soon as classes were out I found myself being dragged to the student council room by Alice.

"Alice, tell me again why _I_ have to come along."

"Because, Bella, Mike is the representative for our grade. And I need you to charm him because he won't fall for my vampire tricks."

I groaned. "Does Edward know I'm doing this?"

"Yes, and I don't like it," Edward said, appearing next to us. "But Alice is blackmailing you so I don't think there's any getting out of this."

"You mentioned that before. What does she have that's so incriminating?"

"Bella, do you remember when I took you shopping the last time you stayed at our house?"

"Which time? The time when you bought the cheerleading costume or the time when we bought the maid's uniform?"

"The first one. Well no one ever made me delete it. So if you don't do what I say then the yearbook is going to have some very interesting photos in it."

"You wouldn't dare."

"Wouldn't I?"

Drat, she had me there. "Fine, I'll do it. But you might want to keep a barf bag handy for after this. And some mouthwash. This is going to be worse than torture."

And so I'd steeled my shoulders and barged into the room. Ten horrifying minutes of complimenting Mike's "muscles" and his "adorable" haircut and generally pretending to flirt with him, and a few persuasions from Alice later, we had our contest. As long as the students did all the set up we were allowed to hold the contest in the gym and we agreed to meet again tomorrow to sort out the official details.

We quietly exited the room and I rushed into Edward's waiting arms. "That was horrible," I grumbled. "I don't think I can get this horrible taste out of my mouth. My lips feel dirty from having complimented Mike so much."

"Maybe this will help," Edward said, leaning down and kissing me, long and soft.

"Mmm, that definitely helped. More. I think a good make-out session should solve this little problem. But not here, my house. Charlie won't be home until late."

Edward smiled and next thing I knew we were sitting on my bed and kissing. And it was wonderful . . . at least it was wonderful while it lasted. All too soon I felt Edward frown and heard Alice's irritatingly cheerful voice begin to ramble on about Halloween costumes and themes.

I groaned and pulled away from Edward, settling on his lap, his fingers weaving through my hair, stroking and braiding it.

"Alright, Bella, let's start with your costume first, because you'll be the hardest one. Let's see," Alice tapped in chin for a moment in fake consideration. I knew she would have already planned something out, but since Edward wasn't objecting fiercely I figured that it couldn't be too bad. "I've got it! You'll be a bunny!"

Well it wouldn't have been my first choice of costumes, but considering it was Alice I was dealing with, a bunny wouldn't be too bad. Might even be halfway decent with her fashion sense. Maybe this Halloween Costume Contest wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.

"Yep," Alice said. "You would make an adorable Playboy Bunny."

"What?" I yelled.

"What!" Edward bellowed, accidentally and involuntarily jerking on a section of hair he was braiding.

"Ow, ow, ow!"

"Sorry," He apologized. "Alice caught me off guard, all she kept thinking was 'bunny' and she was holding onto an image of a fluffy white rabbit like you see in children's books and cartoons."

"It's alright, Edward," I said as Edward began to cautiously braid my hair again.

"Whoops," Alice said. "Maybe it was a little soon for that one. How about we just do a traditional angels and devils theme first?" This time we knew better than to respond until we heard her full explanation. "For you two I'm thinking something along the lines of this," she pulled out a piece of paper with very detailed sketches. We looked over the designs she had for each of us and, unable to find anything explicit, finally agreed. "You guys shouldn't be so nervous; I'm capable of keeping your costumes PG." She grinned as a wave of extreme calm floated over us.

"Jasper," Edward groaned. With came out as more of a mumble given his relaxed mood.

"And that's my cue to exit," Alice said, darting to the window. "By the way, Bella, Charlie will be home in about twenty minutes. And he'll need you to make dinner, better get your homework done now. And do it quick!" And then she was gone.

I sighed. I didn't want to do homework but I figured I had no choice. Sure enough, Charlie sent me a text message, with the words all spelled out, saying he would be home early and asking if I could make dinner earlier. I sent a reply and then started on my homework which, with Edward's help, went very quickly. And in no time I was down in the kitchen with Edward chopping vegetables for stir fry. I was using the recipe we had learned in cooking class last week.

I was mixing the chicken and pasta in with the vegetables in the wok when I felt Edward give a quick peck on the cheek. I heard the echo of his voice saying, "See you later, love," and then Charlie walked in the front door.

"Hey, Dad, dinner's almost ready."

"Ah, thanks Bells. Sorry to work you like this but they announced a surprise staff meeting for later tonight and I have to go."

"Its fine, Dad. How was work?"

"Pretty good, Bells, pretty good."

The rest of the night went smoothly, Charlie finished his dinner, showered and then headed off to the staff meeting, I checked my email and replied to Renée who had sent me a message, and then Edward stopped by to hum my lullaby.

In other words everything was business as usual. The only thing that was different was Alice rambling on about the costume contest at lunch. The only benefit of us being involved in the contest was that we got to skip our last two classes to plan things out with the council. By the end of school on Friday, everything had been planned out. Since most of the student council had elective classes, like cooking, woodshop, study hall and gym, in the second half of the day, it was decided that the members would be allowed to skip class in order to prepare the gym; of course the Cullens were included in this group. The contest would have three categories students could enter under: single, couples, or group. Each student, couple or group could enter as many times as they wanted provided that each day had a different costume. On the final day there would be a big dance at night and the winner, or winners of the contest would be announced.

Basically the thing was going to take over the school, classes would grind to a halt while the students tried to gather groups and finish costumes and build the runway and make decorations. The contest would begin on Monday the twenty second. Which was still awhile away, considering it was only the twelfth.

After school Alice bounced alongside me, simply pulsing with excitement. "Are you excited yet, Bella? Are you ready, Bella? Do you want to come shopping with me yet, Bella?"

"Alice," I said, spinning to face her. "If you were a human I would tell you to lay off the sugar and switch to decaf."

"But I'm not human! This means I have endless hours to go shopping for Halloween supplies! And if you don't come with me then you can't stop me from buying you crazy things to wear!"

Drat, once again I was stuck. I would have to go shopping with Alice to ensure that she wouldn't come back with a shirt whose neckline was down to my waist and heels that were a foot high.

"Don't worry; Rosalie and Esme are coming, too!" Alice chirped, hopping into my ancient truck and gunning the engine. In no time at all we were back at my house and Alice was scrawling out a note for Charlie. I took out the left-over vegetables from the stir fry and put it into a big pot so that Charlie could have soup for dinner in case Alice kept me out all night.

And in the next moment I heard someone honking outside and sure enough, Rosalie was leaning her head out the driver's window and shouting for us to get in. We did and suddenly I found myself standing outside the mall . . . again. Ever since I met Alice and Rosalie, it seemed like I was at the mall more than I was at my own house. Before we went inside Alice gave us all assignments.

"Rosalie, you were helping me make the costume designs so you know what you're looking for. You are in charge of finding any dresses, shirts, pants or skirts that we can use in our outfits. Bella, you're the most familiar with the human side of Halloween. You will be in charge of finding good candy and other Halloween themed foodstuffs. Esme, you'll go with Bella but you will be in charge of finding decorations, everything from toilet paper to blow-up lawn ornaments."

"Why do we need toilet paper?" Esme asked.

"Teenagers like to prank each other on the thirtieth of October, or Mischief Night, by throwing toilet paper in their neighbor's trees."

Esme still looked confused but she shrugged and we all hopped out of the car.

"Hey, Alice, what are you going to be getting?"

Alice grinned, "Shoes!"

I rolled my eyes; I really should have expected that. And thus began our exciting trip through the mall. Although, for once, nothing exceptionally crazy happened. No one popped out from behind the candy displays, I didn't trip and go falling down a flight of stairs, and no major disasters befell the stores we visited. Esme and I stocked up on plenty of candy and decorations, and toilet paper, and then headed off to rendezvous with Rosalie and Alice.

We found Rosalie first, several large and colorful shopping bags were at her feet and several more were swinging from her arms. "Hey Rose, I see you've been busy." She smiled. "Where's Alice?"

"She's recruiting."

"Recruiting?"

"You'll see."

And sure enough a minute later Alice came sauntering through the mall, shoe boxes stacked precariously in her arms, a small army of men trailing behind her, all trying either not to crumble under the weight of the shoes or spill their loads. "Hi guys! I don't know about you but I did pretty well with the shoes. I couldn't find everything I wanted so I had to settle a little bit. But overall I'd rate this a modest success."

"_This_ is a modest success? I'd hate to see a great success," I mumbled.

We all attempted to pile into the car. Humans and vampires first, then shoes and other purchases. It was a miracle that everything fit; luckily one member of Alice's army was a Tetris fan and was able to pack everything in. We stopped back at the house and dumped everything in what Esme called "Alice's Activity Room" which was complete with mannequins and the fabric dummies that fashion designers use. We gave the decorations to the guys, who were sitting around playing video games in the living room, and told them to decorate while we were gone.

"Behave boys; I don't want to come home to a house in ruins. And Carlisle this goes for you, too," Esme said, glaring at her husband who pretended to be fascinated with the curtains. "We have to go talk to Charlie and get some building tips for when we start making the run-way. He's promised to take us to the hardware store to buy supplies. Have fun, but be good. And please, don't do anything stupid."

And with that we were back out the door and off to my house and then the hardware store. We got a few how-to books, a lot of wood, some basic tools and Rosalie filled up a few notebooks with tips from Charlie. She was quite the mechanic but didn't have much experience with wood. By the time we were driving back to the Cullen's house we were all in a good mood and very satisfied with the progress we were making.

But that all changed as soon as Rosalie got her camera out of her bag.

As soon as we pulled in we heard a strange sound as something other than gravel crunched under the wheels of the car. I stuck my head out the window.

"There are . . . egg shells? Yes, that's what they are. Egg shells are everywhere. The shells and the yolks! All over the yard! Oh my . . . Esme you might not want to look at the house."

But of course once I said that everyone had to look at the house. They all gasped in unison. "My house!" Esme cried. The entire front of the house was coated with runny yellow egg yolk. More egg shells were stuck in the yolk and some were stuck on the roof and the window sills. All of Esme's flowers now had a yellow tint to them.

And strung up on the house like a fisherman's prized catch . . . was Jasper. I'd like to say this was the first time I had found him hanging upside-down in a strange place, but sadly it was not. I still vaguely remembered the time I had stayed with the Cullens when I had my period and Jasper was hanging upside-down from a tree branch outside Edward's room.

This time he was wrapped in toilet paper and hanging from his ankles. Apparently he had either been threatened and forced to stay where he was or hanging there was better than what was going on inside. Of course he was probably using this as an excuse to avoid the blame of the mess in the yard. As we drew closer we saw that his blonde hair was matted with more egg yolk.

"Oh Jasper!" Alice hopped out of the car and rushed to her husband. "What have they done to you? What have they done to the yard?"

Jasper put on his saddest vampire face and tried to look as pitiful as possible, which wasn't hard, considering he was covered in egg. "Omelets anyone," he asked as he hung in the air, gently swaying back and forth.

"No Jasper, you have to cook the eggs to make omelets."

"Oh," Jasper said. "Hair treatments anyone?" We just stared at him. I didn't think that anyone would want to be rolling around in the grass just to make their hair shiny. Not even Alice would go that far.

Rosalie came up, holding her camera. "Hey Alice, let's get a picture of this!" Alice had to jump up onto the porch railing in order to grasp the rope that was tied to Jasper's ankles. She gave a thumbs up like a proud fisherman showing off his latest catch. We laughed and Alice quickly untied Jasper, who seemed to forget his vampire reflexes and crumpled to the floor. He hopped up quickly and turned the toilet paper mummy wrapping in to small shreds.

With Jasper at our side and Rosalie's camera at the ready we slowly opened the door and went inside. The first thing we all noticed was that it was dark. We all opted for Jasper to go in first, just in case they had laid any traps for us. They had. Jasper almost immediately triggered a trip wire. He didn't trip but the lights flickered and mock thunder boomed and lightning crackled. We moved farther inside and bumped into a sticky fake spider web as soon as we tried to go into the dining room. And of course that triggered the giant fake spider to drop down from the ceiling. We decided to check out the living room next. Another trip wire activated the jangling chains and creaking doors. Candles flickered to life, throwing nervous shadows over everything, creating faces that weren't there and creating traps where there were none. Slowly something began to rise off the floor. It had a strange shape and at first I couldn't recognize it. But then two more rose up on either side of the first one. They all came to rest at an angle, almost upright but still slanted so we couldn't get a good look at them. The doors all creaked open at the same time. Our demonic hosts greeted us.

"Good evening," the one in the middle, who must have been their leader, said.

The two on either side of him hissed, the candles still throwing shadows over their bodies.

Esme turned on the lights. Carlisle, Emmett and Edward were all standing in old-fashioned coffins, like the ones you always saw in bad vampire movies. Since they lacked proper costumes they had draped their bed sheets around themselves and allowed their fangs to peek out of their mouths. They smiled at us in an attempt to look evil. Rosalie snapped a few photos before the boys noticed the lights were on and that no one was scared.

Frankly it was hard to be scared when the biggest of the three vampires had a cape with little cowboy hats and lassos on it. Of course it was hardly a surprise that Emmett had cowboy bed sheets. He probably saw them in the little boy's section and demanded that Rose buy them for him. The others at least had more grown-up style bed sheets. Edward's were black and Carlisle's were a deep purple, most likely Esme's preference.

"Just what do you think you're doing," Esme asked, taking on her 'I'm-your-mother-and-I'm-very-disappointed-in-you' voice. She glared at all of them but especially hard at Carlisle. "What did we tell you before we left today?"

Carlisle mumbled something.

"What's that?"

"You told us not to do anything stupid."

"And what did you do?"

"We decorated the house for Halloween," Emmett said, gesturing around at all the Halloween decorations that covered the walls and windows.

Rosalie made a noise, "Wrong answer!"

"I'll ask you again," Esme said, "What did you do?"

"We did something stupid," Carlisle admitted.

We gave each of our husbands, or boyfriend in my case, a good long glaring.

"You will clean up this house and then when everything is cleaned and put away in its box _where it belongs_, you can come upstairs for the first costume fitting," Esme said. And with that we tromped away and headed upstairs to work on the angel costumes.


	2. Naughty or Nice?

**HI! Let me just say: I'M SORRY FOR NOT UPDATING THIS STORY IN A MONTH! Because you see, we were working on this, and then we were going to add in a prank, but then that would lead to another and another and we had so much fun planning the pranks that we had to write Prank Wars. And I can't work on two stories at once, and it was a while before my co-author had time to write more of this. But (maybe) we can update a little more now! Well I hope you'll forgive us for our complete lack of activity and enjoy this chapter!**

**All characters are (c) Stephenie Meyer, we just wreck their lives :D**

Chapter 2: Naughty or Nice?

Theme: Angels and Devils

While the guys started putting the decorations away and cleaning up, we headed upstairs to Alice's Activity Room. Alice had a big binder sitting on a table next to the sewing machine. She went over to it now and flipped through the pages until she found a little envelope with some flash drives in it. She plugged it into the computer and soon enough a large, life sized sketch of Esme's angel costume popped up on the wall. Apparently Alice had found a way to hide a projector in the room. Alice pulled out a laminated page that also had Esme's costume printed on it but in fewer details. We set to work quickly pulling out dresses and fabrics and shirts and skirts from the thousands of different bags Alice had. Then we set about cutting them up, stitching them together, altering them and doing all sorts of things. Esme was standing in a fluffy lavender robe and waiting patiently for her first fitting to start. It took a few tries but finally Alice and Rosalie were satisfied with the dress. Alice had to keep hopping up on a chair to adjust things on Esme's costume. Once they were finished it was my job to add in the accessories. Carefully I pinned on Esme's angel wings and tied the gold rope belt around her waist. Alice elegantly piled Esme's caramel hair onto the top of her head and I balanced the little golden halo above her head.

While Esme admired her costume we set to work making Alice's and Rosalie's costumes. It didn't take us as long as I thought it would. And the girls looked great when they were done. I was slipping a few more heart-tipped arrows into Alice's quiver and putting several layers of silver necklaces on Rosalie when we heard a knock on the door.

"Trick or treat," Jasper called.

"Smell my feet!" Emmett boomed.

"Give us all a great big treat!" Edward said.

"If you don't, we won't care," Carlisle called.

"We'll pull down you-"

"Emmett!" Rosalie screamed, opening the door just enough to stick her head out into the hall. "Don't you dare finish that sentence!"

"We finished cleaning up," Edward explained. "Do you have the costumes ready for our fittings? Or do we get a treat instead?"

A smile spread over Rosalie's face. "Hang on just a second, Edward. And wait till we tell you its okay before you come in." Rosalie slammed the door in their faces and Alice was already dragging something large and white out of the closet. She pulled a big white box with red ribbons running up the sides and a big bow tied on the top into the center of the room. Then she quickly undressed me, much to my extreme embarrassment. Then before I could protest she had me dressed again. I suddenly found myself wearing a white strapless bikini. My cheeks began to blaze scarlet as I noticed the extra "decorations" that Alice had added to the bikini.

"Alice, no! Please don't do this! Please," but my pleading fell on deaf ears. All too soon I found myself being pushed into the box and having the lid clamped on.

"Don't worry, Bella," I heard Alice whisper, "If you just do this for me then I promise to let you pick the next theme."

"Fine," I grumbled. I figured that this couldn't possibly be as horrible as I thought it was going to be. After all, Alice would have stopped me if she thought something horrible was going to happen, right? . . . Right?

Wrong!

EPOV

None of us were sure what Alice had in store or why I was the only one getting a surprise. But frankly I didn't care. I had a feeling that this was going to be pretty amazing and unforgettable. Alice, Rosalie and Esme were all blocking me from their thoughts and refusing to give me even a tiny hint.

I heard whispering inside but I couldn't hear what they were saying, not that I was trying very hard. Sometimes I like a good surprise.

"Alright, Edward," Alice yelled from inside, "what's the password?"

"Password?" I thought about it for a minute, trying to decide what Alice would use as a password for this.

_The password is 'Trick or Treat' dummy_, Alice thought.

"Oh," I said. "Trick or treat!"

_Good, now open the door._

I did as Alice said and found Esme, Alice and Rosalie standing around a big white box wrapped up with a red ribbon.

"We choose treat!" Alice said as she pulled on the ribbon. Instantly the sides of the box fell open revealing my Bella who was standing with her arms behind her back so that her chest puffed out a little farther.

I was stunned, I gaped openly at Bella. But it wasn't her pose or the fact that she had been standing inside of a giant box that stunned me. It was her outfit. Bella was wearing nothing but two selectively placed red ribbons. The first one was tied around her chest, barely covering her and threatening to come loose at any second. The second was tied around her hips with a large bow that thankfully looked more secure than the first one.

Bella kept her eyes downcast, a light dusting of blush covering her cheeks. Slowly she swept her gaze up my body and met my eyes. As soon as she did so the dusting of blush became an avalanche and soon her entire face was a pink-ish-red color. "Surprise," she whispered.

I quickly rushed inside the room and slammed the door. I was not about to have Emmett ogle my Bella and this was not something I wanted Carlisle to see, Jasper either for that matter. "Bella," I said cautiously, "What are you wearing?" I couldn't help but trace her body with my eyes, lingering on the delicate bows.

"Do you like it?" She spoke quietly, trying to hide her embarrassment. It succeeded in making her a thousand times cuter, such innocence wrapped up in that pale little human package, and topped with a few red bows. "Alice thought that this would be a great way to show you my Halloween costume."

I tried to ask her what she was talking about but mysteriously I had lost control of my mouth.

"Want to see?" Bella asked as she took a hold of both the ribbons, pinching the end of the silky material between her forefinger and thumb.

"Yes," I breathed, my mind registering a split second too late what she intended to do. I was thankful I had already thought to close the door. I lunged for Bella, trying to avert her plan but I was too late, Rose caught me and held me back as Bella gave a good hard yank to both the ribbons. A cloud of smoke appeared in front of Bella and when it settled she was wearing yet another crazy outfit, no doubt designed and created by Alice.

She was wearing knee-high boots, a dress with a fitted top, long feathery sleeves and a feathery skirt. She had little clear devil horns in her hair that we holding up a golden halo. She wasn't wearing much noticeable make-up but her lips were bright red, the same color as her dress and boots.

I gaped, no longer resisting Rosalie's embrace. I opened my mouth once, twice, three times. On the fourth try I managed to form words.

"BELLA!!! WHAT do you think YOU'RE DOING?!" I yelled at the top of my lungs.

Behind me, I heard a great crashing sound. As I turned, I was suddenly hit on the forehead with a piece of what was formerly part of the door.

"What is it?! What's wrong, Edward?" Emmett yelled. He had been the one to break down the door. Of course. Typical Emmett. Behind him, a bewildered Jasper and an exasperated Carlisle stood outside of the room's boundaries.

He had obviously tackled the door, taking it out with his shoulder, and as he lay on the floor among the ruined pieces of wood, he finally began to take in his surroundings. His eyes roamed over Rosalie and me, then over Alice, Esme, and landed on Bella last. His lips began to curl.

"Hey, man, sorry about barging in like that. I thought Bella was going to jump out the window or something." He snickered. "But if I had known it was _this_," he indicates to Bella, who is now that particular tomato red shade, "I would have minded my own business."

I growled at him, baring my teeth in fury.

Alice clapped her hands. "Okay, Edward! Now it's time for YOUR costume." She grinned. I squirmed.

"Alice, that look you have is making me nervous," Bella's eyebrows furrowed, and she bit her bottom lip, looking adorable. Was there any question as to why I loved her?

Alice danced around to her. "Don't worry about it, Bella. Now, everybody out except for me and Edward. It's time for Eddie's makeover." She grinned evilly. I shivered. There were times I'd rather face the Volturi than Alice with her "beautifying" solutions. At least then I could go down with a fight.

BPOV

I was worried. Seriously worried. I paced the living room, wall to wall. I had changed back to my regular clothes, and was twisting my shirt nervously. The look in Alice's eyes…I shook my head, refusing to even think in that direction, with Alice up there, _alone, _an evil look in her eye, and she was with EDWARD- Edward, the love of my life, the light in my darkness… In her PRIVATE DOMAIN (Translation: Alice has makeup, outfits, and mirrors galore in her "beauty parlor". Personally, I think that it's just her code phrase for "chamber of doom". All she needs is a sign hanging over it saying "Abandon all hope ye who enters.") Sure, the door's been torn down, but that didn't stop Alice from hanging up a curtain and kicking us all out. My poor darling Edward…

"Bella." Carlisle, who was sitting on the couch with his arm draped over Esme, spoke in his quiet voice. "You're going to wear a path on the carpet. Take a seat. Relax. Alice can't possibly wreak this much havoc on someone like Edward. So why don't you just sit down and-"

A scream filled with anguish sounded, and was cut off abruptly. Everybody turned their gazes in sync to the room up the stairs. I paled.

"Alice is torturing him!" I screamed.

All of us stormed up the stairs, and again it was Emmett who tore down the curtain door, becoming tangled in the cloth. Once inside, we all stopped…and stared.

I opened and closed my mouth three times before finally getting some words out. "…Edward…?"

"WHAT are you WEARING?!" Emmett screamed, finally getting his head free of the sheets.

Edward was in some sort of white tux, but that wasn't the weird part. The weird part was, he had WINGS. Big, white, FLUFFY wings. And, to top it all off, a HALO. His hands were also bound behind his back, and his legs were tied together also. It seemed that he had tried to escape. Pity he hadn't made it. It seemed he had tried screaming, before Alice had gagged him.

Emmett started to chuckle, and then it turned into a full belly laugh. "Man, Eddie, you're going to get molested when we go to school tomorrow if you look that cute."

Edward's eyes were blazing with fury, and the look he shot at Emmett gave a new twist to the term "if looks can kill".

Thankfully, Rosalie stepped in before things got too ugly. She smacked the back of Emmett's head and hauled him away by his ear, muttering things like "idiot husband" and "why'd I ever agree to marry you?" All the while Emmett was whimpering and begging Rose to be forgiven. We all stared in silence after them, then turned our attention back to the bound and gagged Edward. I finally recovered enough to go forward and untie his knots.

Alice, meanwhile, was busy taking out the other costumes. She showed us everyone's outfits. Carlisle and Esme were going to be traditional devil and angel, with the halo and horns and everything. Alice made herself a cherub outfit with a bow and arrow. Jasper was going to be a red devil of love, and would have one of Alice's arrows stuck on him. Rosalie was going to be a dark angel, with spikes and chains on her outfit. Emmett was going to be her counterpart by being a devil dressed all in black also decorated with spikes and chains. After Edward stopped grumbling about his outfit, the rest of the day went by smoothly.

The next morning, as we were getting ready for school, Alice insisted that we dress up in normal clothes and save our outfits to change into after gym. We all agreed, since none of us wanted to fight with Alice in the morning. I didn't anyway. I'm slow to wake up in the mornings. I can't speak for anyone else, though, since nobody else sleeps.

After I had slugged through all my morning classes, it was time for gym...well, you know how that went. We were playing tennis, which is worse than badminton because the ball is heavier and so are the tennis rackets. Mike graciously offered to be my partner, despite all the bruises I've given him over the years. This period was no different. Somehow, while aiming for the ball, I suddenly found myself airborne. Freaking out, I flailed my arms and legs, and the arm that was holding the tennis racket managed to slam into Mike's groin. With a look of shock and pain, he sank to his knees. Needless to say, the coach took me out of the game and sent Mike to the nurse.

There was a plus side to all the pain I had caused, after this there wouldn't be any more classes. Instead we were starting the Halloween Costume Contest. It would be the first of many days that we did this and everyone was excited.

As I went into the locker room to change, I grabbed the bag that contained my Halloween costume. Then I left the locker room and found a private room to change. As I was taking my clothes off, I heard the doorknob rattle.

MPOV

As I limped through the hallways with an ice pack, I grimaced with each step. Bella is strong, but if only she wasn't so clumsy…but I love her anyways. The period was already over and it was time for the Costume Contest to begin. I had volunteered to be one of the announcers so I got to go to a private room so that I could introduce each person and comment on their outfits. I finally found a room that had a sign marked "Do Not Disturb: Private Room for Costume Contest."

I assumed that it was the room I would be sharing with Jessica, my co-host. I turned the knob and headed inside. Funny, why were all the lights turned off? I fumbled around for the light switch. Ah, success. After my eyes had adjusted to the sudden brightness, my jaw dropped.

It was BELLA! Naked! With no clothes on!

"Edward," she called tentatively, turning around to face me. "Can you help me – MIKE?! What are you doing here? Get out!!"

I could do nothing but stare stupidly at Bella's non-existent clothing. All she was wearing was a matching bra-and-panties set that was red edged by black lace. Unfortunately she spun around and tried to cover herself with her arms. Fortunately, when she spun around she gave me a nice view of her from behind. And scrawled across the back of her panties in bold black lettering was "HOTTIE." I felt something warm and wet drip out of my nose and suddenly I was face to face with the floor. I heard Bella start to scream but then suddenly she stopped and everything went black.

BPOV

As the doorknob startled to rattle I automatically assumed it was Edward and resisted my urge to run to him until after he turned the lights on. The last thing I needed was to get hurt now, Alice would have my head.

As the lights flickered on and I started to turn around I called out, "Edward, can you help me-" but instead of my darling Edward standing in the doorway, there was someone much more repulsive. "MIKE?! What are you doing here? Get out!!" By now I was redder than my devil costume. But Mike didn't go anywhere, he just kept staring . . . at my chest. I glanced down and was horrified to realize what I was wearing. Curse you Alice, curse you! She had been the one to dress me this morning, because I was too sleepy to object, and she had put me in a skimpy little bra and panties set. Quickly I whirled around, hugging myself and trying to hide my nudity from Mike. I figured that a back view would be better than a front view. I was wrong, of course. I heard Mike gasp in the most disgusting manner and then I heard a thump that was accented by the tangy scent of blood. I peeked over my shoulder and found Mike lying face-down on the ground surrounded by a small pool of blood. I started to scream as wooziness spread throughout my body.

Just as my knees gave out I found myself being rescued by my chivalrous vampire. I threw my arms around his neck, sobbing, "Oh Edward, you came!"

EPOV

Just as I took of my shirt to finish changing into my costume I heard Bella scream. I went running and burst into the room Alice had given her to change. I got there just in time, too, because her knees were buckling and she was about to collapse. I rushed to her side and wrapped my arms around her.

"Oh Edward, you came!" She yelled, throwing her arms around my neck. I felt something soft and squishy beneath my foot and I realized I was stepping on someone's hand. My gaze trailed up its arm and I realized that I was standing on Mike's hand. I was about to yell at him when I realized he was passed out . . . in a pool of his own blood. Oh dear.

"Bella? Bella what happened," I asked, quickly deciding to stop breathing.

"Mike – he – Mike –door – changing – opened – blood!" Bella was sputtering and unable to speak in coherent sentences.

I set her down gently on the floor and propped her up against the wall. I kept my eyes on the wall so that my desires wouldn't overtake me. I quickly fetched some paper towels and mopped up the blood. Then I dragged Mike out into the hall, where I proceeded to pound him senseless. Then I brought him to the nurses' office where I said that I had found him unconscious at the bottom of the staircase. I noticed the nurse eyeing the distinct knuckle-shaped bruises that dotted Mike's face, thankfully she didn't ask. I caught her thinking that this was Mike's second trip in 15 minutes. I chuckled quietly to myself and left the nurses' office in a better mood than before.

When I came back in Bella was still leaning against the wall. "Congratulations, love, you managed to cripple Mike during gym class. Now the world won't have to suffer from another generation of idiots." And that's when I noticed what she was wearing. Or more specifically, not wearing.

Bella was barely dressed and had her arms stretched out for me. I glanced down and realized I wasn't wearing a shirt. I could tell that the second I went to Bella that Alice would be in here with a camera. I decided to lock the door. Sure enough I heard Alice whining from the other side.

I knelt down next to Bella. "Are you alright, love?"

"Yes, I'm fine. Embarrassed, but that's normal." Her blush had been reduced to a pale pink that almost always coated her cheeks. "But I think I could use a little time in your arms to calm me down."

Just as I had gathered her into my arms and pulled her into my lap I heard the familiar sound of the door crashing down. Before I even turned around I knew that Emmett had been the one to break down the door, and that Alice was standing behind him with her camera at the ready.

"Edward! Bella! Alice told me Mike was in here and in need of-ohh." He backed out the door holding up his hands. "Sorry, I'll leave you two lovebirds alone." As soon as he finished saying that I heard the distinct sound and flash of a camera. Alice strikes again.

And our torture wasn't over yet. A moment later Alice winked and disappeared. And then our esteemed principal appeared at the doorway, eyeing what remained of the door. "Mr. Cullen, why is there no longer a door here?"

"Well you see-" Emmett started to explain, before taking off down the hallway, running for all he was worth.

And that's when the principal noticed us.

"Mr. Cullen! Why are you not wearing a shirt? And Miss Swan! Where on earth are your clothes? I expected this of Miss Hale and Mr. Cullen but not of you!" Oh joy, apparently Emmett and Rosalie have been caught having secret "make-out sessions" in various school closets. Now I know why they giggle every time someone is asked to go to the supply closet. The principal then launched into a ten-minute lecture about proper school behavior and resisting our "natural urges" while in a learning environment.

Thankfully, Alice came to our rescue. "Excuse me, sir, but have you seen Bella and Edward? I need them for the Costume Contest and I can't find them."

The principal tried not to glare at Alice. "The hooligans are in there." He pointed to us.

"Oh, wait a minute. Didn't Rosalie just drag Mike out of that closet? Oh that must have been why I heard a scream. Mike must have walked in on Bella and Edward, ever the good boyfriend, came to see what was wrong."

"I see. But that still doesn't explain why-"

"Bella gets very faint at the sight of blood and Edward must have rushed over to steady her."

"Indeed I was. I was just making sure she was okay. She had tried to stand up but fell back down and that's when my brother knocked down the door and you came by. I'm terribly sorry for the mix-up, sir."

The principal still looked annoyed but he couldn't resist the lethal combination of logic, smooth lies and vampire charm. He walked away then, mumbling something about not letting this happen again.

"You owe me," Alice said. "And both of you better get dressed, the show has already started and we're going to be up soon. And just remember Bella, if you don't go out on stage I'll spread that picture I just took of you and Edward around the entire school. The principal bought your lies but I doubt everyone else will." And then she disappeared.

I made sure Bella was steady and then pieced the door together, holding it with pieces of duct tape and slid it back into place. Then I went to finish changing to my own costume.

BPOV

I have never been so embarrassed in my entire life. I can't believe that the principal walked in on us. Although I supposed it could have been worse, it could have been Charlie. Although I don't know why Charlie would be in school. But if he was he would have shot Edward's head off and then chewed off mine.

I was still considering backing out of the whole Costume Contest idea; only Alice's threats of blackmail kept me in my place. I was standing backstage with the rest of the Cullens, awaiting our cue.

"And now, here's the Cullen family with their 'Angels and Devils' theme." We were lined up so that girls were on one side of the stage and the guys were on the other side. Carlisle and Esme went out first, walking out of the wings and meeting in the center of the stage. "And here's Carlisle and Esme." They took each other's hands and then walked down the catwalk. Some of the girls swooned in the audience as they saw how fit Carlisle was. He twirled Esme in a circle and then spun himself in a small, neat circle before they took their spot on the left side of the stage.

"Next up is Alice Cullen and Jasper Hale." Alice and Jasper followed the same route as Esme and Carlisle but when they reached the head of the stage Jasper lifted Alice into the air and twirled her around while she giggled. Then he pretended to drop her and she landed softly in his arms. The same girls cooed appreciatively when he caught her. They took a spot on the right side of the stage.

"Now it's time for . . . Rosalie Hale," Mike said dreamily into the microphone.

"And Emmett Cullen," Jessica interjected.

Emmett and Rosalie almost stalked up the catwalk; Rosalie in her fluid grace and Emmett in his menacing way. At the end of the catwalk he proceeded to "pump his guns" before grabbing hold of Rosalie, dipping her, and kissing her fiercely. The girls had been cheering while Emmett "pumped his guns" but stopped when he kissed Rosalie. When Rosalie had appeared on stage a few of the guys had gotten nosebleeds. They took their spot next to Carlisle and Esme on the left side.

And suddenly it was our turn. I prayed that I could survive this. "And finally, here's Bella Swan!"

There was a loud smack and then Jessica's voice came over the loudspeakers. "And don't forget Edward Cullen!" All the girls started to scream at the mere mention of his name. _Sluts_, I thought to myself.

I walked out onto the stage and immediately wished I hadn't. All the guys in the audience started to cheer and I even heard a few cat-calls. I just kept my eyes glued to Edward, who met me halfway and led me down the aisle, holding my arm so that I wouldn't trip. We paused at the head of the stage but before we could do anything else we heard a girl scream "Charge!" Suddenly every female in the audience surged forward in an attempt to claim Edward.

Edward scooped me into his arms, took one look at the advancing crowd and then turned towards Emmett. "Keep her safe," he yelled.

"7, 42, 6, HIKE!" Emmett yelled, as if this were a football game. I blushed furiously and suddenly found myself airborne. Edward had thrown me like a sack of potatoes at Emmett. He caught me and yelled, "Touchdown!" He held me aloft like I was some sort of splendid trophy.

By now Edward had retreated backstage and out of sight. I could only assume that he had fled the mob of desperate fangirls. Of course the mob couldn't take a hint and kept following Edward. I only hoped they would stop when they got outside the school and couldn't find him.

"Wait, Jessica! Where are you going?" Mike's frantic voice could still be heard, even above the squealing mob. "Well it would appear that, by popular demand, the Cullen family has won this round."

The remaining crowd cheered and we hurried off the stage. As we were going I noticed a distinct red streak dripping down the glass from the announcer's booth.

MPOV

This was the best day of my life. We need to do this more often. I got to see Bella naked, I got to see her in a hot red mini-dress, and that Cullen jerk got chased off by fangirls! A nosebleed or two is a small price to pay for so much happiness. Speaking of which . . . perhaps I should clean up this blood now.

I can't wait for tomorrow.


	3. All is Fair in Fashion and War

***Slinks in peering cautiously around corner* Hey everyone. Uh, so, remember how we have this little unspoken agreement that we post chapters when we finish writing them and you read them and (hopefully) laugh? Hehehe, well about that . . . I finished this at least a week ago and forgot to post it. *runs off***

**Sheika's friend: Um . . . I had no part in this. But enjoy this chapter anyway!**

**All characters are (c) Stephenie Meyer. We just destroy everything around them.**

Chapter 3: All is Fair in Fashion and War

Theme: Fairytale/Storybook

BPOV

"Alright, Bella," Alice said. "I'll let you pick the next costume theme. But you have to decide soon, we only have a day to get these costumes done. Which won't be a problem for us, but I know you like to protest about everything I buy for you."

I glared at Alice. I couldn't deny that I always refused to wear most of the clothes she bought for me, but I still felt like glaring. "Fine. Let's head out then. We'll walk around downtown and I'll think of something."

And so that's how we started the afternoon. We all got into our cars and drove downtown after school. After Alice and Emmett did a full sweep of the area, making sure Mike wasn't there to chase after me, and that there were no fangirls to chase after Edward, we headed into town.

"Hey, Bella," Emmett yelled, "I think you'll be able to find a great theme in this store. Victori-"

"Emmett!" Suddenly Rosalie had Emmett by the ear and was whispering furiously into his ear.

"No, not that! Anything but that!"

The rest of us walked right by them, pretending not to know them.

"So, Bella love," Edward asked. "What exactly are you looking for in terms of costumes?"

"Well I want a theme that Alice can't corrupt. I mean, I really should have seen this coming. It was so easily corrupted!"

"Angels and devils?"

"Yeah, haven't you been inside a costume store, Edward," I asked. "Everything has corrupted. Nowadays everything comes in a "slutty" version. Slutty nurse, slutty French maid, slutty flight attendant. Need I go on?"

"No, I get the picture," Edward said.

EPOV

Funny, that sounds a lot like Rosalie and Emmett's wardrobe . . .

BPOV

"In any case we need to find a theme that Alice can't possibly corrupt." And that's when I saw it. "That's it! We'll do the most pure and innocent theme there is!"

Everyone stared at me.

"Love," Edward suggested.

"Babies," Carlisle asked.

"Fashion," Rosalie said in a very confident tone.

"Flowers," Esme said.

"Laughter," Jasper said, jumping up and down, clapping happily.

"Strip clubs!" Emmett yelled. Now everyone turned to stare at him. Rosalie smacked him.

"No," I said. "Fairytales!"

"Nope," everyone agreed, "I never would have thought of that."

Now it was my turn to stare at them. "Let's just go inside," I said, grabbing Edward's arm and pulling him along. Once we were inside the Cullens all ran off in different directions. It occurred to me that they had never been inside a toy store. Everyone scattered, running off in opposite directions.

Emmett found the cowboy dress-up aisle and Jasper ran into the princess aisle. A few aisles over I heard Carlisle giving a lecture about how inaccurate the children's doctor kits were and Esme was yelling at the store manager because his store didn't smell nice enough, I peeked over and found her digging out bottles of air fresheners from her purse and handing them to the poor confused-looking manager. Edward had disappeared somewhere so I led Alice and Rosalie over to where the storybooks were and showed then what I was thinking.

Alice smiled. "Oh I think we can make this work. And Bella is there any part you refuse to play?"

"Not the witch. Nothing where I can get hurt. Nothing slutty!"

"Aw," Alice said in fake disappointment.

"What if we-OW!" Rosalie had started to suggest something but suddenly an orange foam dart bounced off her forehead.

"What the-" I started to say, but then there was a suction cup dart stuck over my mouth. Alice ducked as a football sailed over her head.

"Two out of three, not bad." Emmett's head peered around the corner. Emmett had on a cowboy hat, a vest, boots, and a sheriff's badge. In his hands was a Nerf soft-foam dart launcher.

"It's just because Alice ducked," Edward said, appearing next to him. Edward was dressed up like a police officer, fake holster with "back-up" aka mini water guns. He had a police hat, badge and dark glasses in addition to his Nerf suction cup dart launcher.

"Hey, do they look angry to you? I think we should run." Jasper was holding a basket of foam footballs and had somehow managed to cram himself into a pink princess gown, which included matching fake heels, gloves and a tiara.

"This."

"Means."

"War!"

And then we were off, chasing the guys through the toy store. The guys raced past Carlisle screaming, "Help us, Carlisle! We're at war with the girls and need your help!" Carlisle took one look at the situation and then grabbed a machine-gun-style dart launcher and started firing at us.

"Retreat!" We ran off to the other side of the store and found Esme. "Esme help us! We're at war with the guys and they've recruited Carlisle!"

Esme looked a little skeptical, but once she realized that Carlisle had joined the guys' team she was ready to battle. "Bella, Alice! You two make the fort! Rosalie, you get weapons! I'll get the war outfits. Ready? Break!"

We all ran off. Alice and I found a large, open play area that, thankfully, was empty. We grabbed every pillow, blanket, and life-sized toy brick we could find. And soon enough we had a pretty awesome looking fort, complete with a combat wall that we could hide behind and still launch weapons at the guys. Rosalie returned shortly after we finished the fort with the weapons. The same ones as the guys, I noted.

"Sadly there is a limited amount of long-range weapons in this place." As she handed us each our weapons Esme appeared with armfuls of costumes. She handed us each a pair of camouflage pants, black tank tops, plastic army helmets and some black face paint. Within a minute we were camo-ed up and ready for battle.

I peered out over the combat wall and found that the guys had set up a similar fort across the room. I spotted Jasper's tiara peeking out from the top of their wall.

"Fire!" I yelled. And suddenly it was every vampire, or me, for themselves. Five long minutes of constant attacks. Nothing but exchanged fire, with an occasional pause to reload or grab more footballs.

"Hold it girls," Esme said. "We can't keep doing this. No one is dying. We need something more. We need a . . ."

CPOV

"A general to control the attacks. Now there aren't any more attacks coming so the girls must be doing the same thing."

"Yeah, they are," Edward confirmed. "They just chose Alice."

"Alright," Carlisle said. "Then-"

"Oh! Wait!" Emmett said, bouncing around inside out fort and nearly knocking it down. "Can I say it?"

"Fine."

"I choose you: Edward!" Emmett threw a little red-and-white ball that popped open when it hit the ground.

"Edward, Edward," he said in a stupid voice.

"Go, Edward! Use mind-reading!"

BPOV

I don't know if you've ever . . .

RPOV

Ever tried to play war with . . .

EmPOV

With Edward as . . .

EsPOV

With Alice as your general.

JPOV

But basically what happens is . . .

BPOV

You sit there . . .

CPOV

Not doing anything . . .

EsPOV

Until finally you can't take it anymore. And you say . . .

JPOV

"Edward!"

BPOV

"Alice!"

EmPOV

"We want-"

RPOV

"-action!"

JPOV

And then it's nothing but . . .

RPOV

Chaos. They just keep shouting . . .

CPOV

A different attack every . . .

EmPOV

Three seconds. But then a cry goes out. . .

CPOV

Someone's been hit! Jasper goes down, then Emmett. Edward follows and suddenly . . .

BPOV

I've been hit! Next to me Rosalie crumbles dramatically, clutching her chest. Just before everything goes black I see a dart is flying through the air and now . . .

EsPOV

I'm alone. Everyone else is gone. I have no choice but to surrender. I rise up past the fort and see who else but my husband rising up over the wall of his fort. "I'm the only one left," I say.

"Me, too."

We look at each other and suddenly we get an idea. "We're the champions of war! And you know what the champions get."

"A parade." We rally our troops and grabbed some supplies.

BPOV

I didn't see why we had to do this. Esme had grabbed a shopping cart, which happened to look like a chariot and sat down. Then she threw each of us a white pony stick, the kind little kids use to ride around their houses, and told us to start pulling her around the store. I was upset at first but Esme had always been so nice, always putting up with our crazy plans. Surely it couldn't hurt to indulge her a little bit.

And so we began our happy little parade around the store. I looked over and saw that Edward, Jasper and Emmett, who seemed to be having a little too much fun, were pulling Carlisle around in a chariot of his own.

"So you guys decided to indulge Carlisle a little, too," I asked Edward.

"He threatened horrible things unless we drove him around," Edward complained.

I asked him what kind of horrible things but he refused to say. Eventually the store manager came over and told us that we either had to buy something or get out this instant. So we got out of the cart, put away all our costumes and weapons started to head out. Except for Alice who stopped to buy some supplies.

We went back to the Cullen's house and Alice, Rosalie and Esme rushed straight upstairs to start working on the outfits. The guys went into the living room and I went into the kitchen to get something to eat. War always makes me hungry.

I had managed to locate a box of cereal in the cabinet. Apparently Emmett had done the shopping because the only cereal they had in the cabinet was Sugar-coated Candy-Os with extra marshmallow puffs. Okay so maybe it wasn't called that but it might as well have been. It was nothing but sugar. And I had to dig in the cabinet to find regular milk, instead of chocolate milk.

By the time I had found everything Emmett was leaning against the kitchen island. "Hey, Bella, can we have a staring contest?"

"What?"

"I saw some kids doing it in a movie preview and I want to try it."

I just stared at Emmett for a minute. And then my inner child took over. "You're on! First one to blink or look away wins!" And so I sat down and Emmett leaned against the island and we stared at each other. After about a minute I remembered how hungry I was. "It okay if I start eating?"

"Go right ahead, I don't mind."

And so, without taking my eyes off Emmett, I picked up the box of cereal and tried to pour some into my bowl. I never realized how much I relied on my eyes. The first time around most of the cereal missed the bowl. It landed on the counter, the floor and on my lap. Finally though I managed to get some in the bowl. I patted it down with my hand and then groped for the milk. Now you would think by now that I would have thought just to put my hand in the bowl, feel around for my hand with the milk carton and then pour. But I didn't think of that. Instead I ended up emptying the entire carton of milk. Thankfully most of the milk ended up over the cereal. Sadly, that did not mean it went in the bowl.

"Bella? Why is there milk and cereal all over the floor? Oh and it's in your lap, too. Lovely." Edward stated, coming into the kitchen.

"We're having a staring contest," Emmett explained.

"Oh, shoot," I said.

"What," Edward asked.

"Forgot to get a spoon." Ignoring Edward's protests I got out of my chair, crossing the wet and crunchy floor, and groped for a spoon.

"Get the spork instead," Emmett said, "It's easier to spear the marshmallows that way."

"Good idea." I found the spork easily; it was the only pointy object in the spoon tray. I then walked back past Edward and sat down, proud of myself for not blinking and losing to Emmett.

Now came the hard part. If I had trouble just putting the cereal in the bowl I suspected I was going to have even more trouble taking it out. I gently probed around the counter, trying to find the bowl.

"Bella love, why don't you let me feed you? I'd feel so much better that way."

"No, Edward. I can't risk losing concentration and losing the staring contest."

While Edward protested I kept groping around for the bowl. Finally I thought I had found it, so I thrust my spoon down. "Ok, Bella, that's my arm. Ow! Bella you just stabbed my hand!"

"With a spork!" Emmett started vibrating with laughter. "Oh Edward, that is priceless!"

I heard Edward growl and suddenly Emmett's face was covered with my cereal bowl. Milk dribbled down his face and onto his shirt. The bowl fell away, clattering loudly on the floor. Emmett's face was covered with soggy Sugar-coated Candy-Os and marshmallows. I laughed. He blinked.

"You lost! Ha-ha! That means I won! I did it! I finally beat Emmett!" I started dancing around victoriously. I leaped up, wrapping my arms around Edward's neck and my legs around his waist. "I did it!" And then I kissed him.

"Well that was . . ."

"Delightful? Wonderful?"

"Unexpected," Edward admitted. And then he started to laugh a little.

"I'm not _that_ bad of a kisser, am I?"

"No, no, not you Bella love. Alice just told Rosalie to think of her costume as being a cat woman suit."

I laughed and Edward grimaced. "What's wrong?"

"Jasper is going to practice his singing."

"Alas my love you do me wrong," Jasper came in, singing horribly off key. And wearing . . .

"_What_ are you wearing?"

"You like it," He asked, spreading his arms. Jasper was wearing a nearly skin-tight yellow and blue body suit. It had four large squares of color, like an extremely oversized corner of a checker board. It looked to be all one piece, even covering his feet, where it turned up at the end. On his head was a big floppy jester's hat complete with little bells. "Want to hear a joke? Ok so, Bella walks into-"

"NO!" Edward and I yelled at the same time.

I put my head in my hands. I sensed another long day at the Cullen house.

EPOV

I wanted to comfort Bella but she should have known what she was getting into by now. And she really should have been expecting something crazy from Alice.

I was about to tell her that she could still escape to Charlie's house when I heard Alice calling me with her thoughts. Quietly I snuck away upstairs and was quickly buried in a pile of heavy armor.

"Alice? What are you doing? What's all this?"

"Edward you're going to need to put all that on, Eddie. A knight in shining armor needs . . . well, shining armor."

"What are you talking about?"

"The next costume theme, Edward," Carlisle said, emerging from a corner of the room. "Alice has decided to enact one of the stories from the books Bella showed her."

"So you'll need to put that on and spend the day fencing with Emmett and Rosalie," Alice said, digging me out of the pile and then strapping me in to all the different armor pieces. One I was completely covered she handed me a fake sword and shield Alice pushed me downstairs where Emmett and Rosalie were waiting, both dressed strangely.

I laughed at them, and continued laughing until Emmett lunged for me. And so we spent the rest of the afternoon fighting.

BPOV

Who needs TV when you have vampires fighting in the living room? I started to feel like Caesar, residing over the fight, watching Edward and Emmett and then Edward and Rosalie fight to the "death". Whenever they had gotten one another into a compromising position they would look to me.

And then it was my decision to kill them or let them live. Needless to say I had a lot of fun, and Emmett died every time he got caught.

And in between the battles Jasper tried to entertain me with jokes, songs and acrobatic tricks. The jokes were lousy and he can't sing a note. The acrobatic tricks were pretty cool, however.

And then it was my turn to get fitted for my costume. I hesitantly climbed the stairs and peeked inside. I didn't trust Alice, not after what had happened last time. But she assured me that even I wouldn't be able to find something that was wrong with my costume. Of course I didn't believe her. So she picked up one of the storybooks and flipped through until she found the picture that she was looking for.

I smiled; she had picked out the book that had been my favorite as a little girl. I had always admired the princess. I looked up again and Alice had giant sketches of my costume projected on the wall.

"So? Will you let me work in peace," Alice asked. I nodded and she set to work. She pulled out sheets of fabric and started fitting them to me, pinning things and folding them and sewing them together. In less time than I would have thought possible she had finished my costume. I stood for a moment, admiring it and then my phone buzzed in the pocket of my jeans.

"Charlie!" I yelled, quickly changing out of my dress. "I have to get home! He's sure to be wondering where I am!"

"Don't worry," Alice assured me, "He won't be angry. But you might want to want to bring him his favorite dinner."

"Where-"

"It's in the kitchen. I had Esme run out and pick it up earlier."

I hugged Alice. "Thank you! You're a lifesaver!"

"Just remember! You owe me for this! I'll collect tomorrow, so be ready."

I didn't have time to worry about what Alice would make me do; I had to get home to Charlie before he decided to ground me for staying out too late.

APOV

I was so excited. I couldn't wait until classes were over and it was time for the costume contest.

I was dragging Jasper out the door in the morning. "Come on, Jasper, let's go."

"Alice, why do we have to go to school so early?"

"Because I want to set up ahead of time."

"But Alice, it's three A.M. the school is closed!" I glared at Jasper, how dare he ruin my buzz.

RPOV

We were all glad to finally head to school that morning. Alice had been bouncing around since 3 A.M. and, even though we didn't need sleep, she was still bothering everyone. Especially Edward. Alice was so excited and her thoughts were so loud that Edward couldn't block her out. So then we had an over excited Alice and a grumpy Edward and an emotionally torn Jasper. He went on horrible mood swings, lashing out at people and then trying to contain his excitement.

I went outside at one point and found him curled up in the woods near the house.

"It's just too much! No matter what mood I'm in or where I go someone is yelling at me!"

Which was true. If Jasper was excited and he went near Edward, he'd get yelled at. But if he was angry and he went near Alice, she would spend hours trying to cheer him up and get him excited again.

Finally we couldn't take it anymore. We found a heavy scarf and wrapped it around Alice's mouth. It didn't stop her from talking, so far we hadn't found anything that would, but it did quiet her significantly. And then with our large, fuzzy earmuffs, it was almost peaceful. Unfortunately Emmett didn't seem to understand how they worked.

He kept shouting at everyone whenever he wanted to say something instead of just walking over and gesturing for us to take off the earmuff. And he really didn't understand that Edward could still read his thoughts.

"Hey Edward!" Emmett was yelling. "You want to hear a joke?"

Edward grabbed one side of Emmett's earmuffs, "I can hear your thoughts, dummy." He let the earmuff snap back into place.

"But it's a really funny joke!"

"Emmett, I know!"

"What did-"

"Emmett! I already heard the joke when you thought of it three seconds ago!"

"Funny, right?"

Edward put his head in his hands and sighed. He turned to me and, after I had taken off my earmuffs, asked, "How do you put up with him being like this all the time?"

"You learn to tune him out."

BPOV

I didn't know why the Cullens were wearing earmuffs in the middle of October, or why Alice had a scarf wrapped around her face. Or why Alice's arms had been duct-taped to her sides. But judging by the way she kept jumping around and banging into Emmett's chest I got the feeling she was excited and this was the Cullen's attempt to deal with her.

I was still staring at them when Alice noticed me. Even through the thick scarf I could hear her excited voice rambling on. "Aren't you excited Bella? Today's the big day. It's going to be so much fun. Are you excited? Are you, are you?" And then she started bouncing off of me.

"Ow, ow, ow!" It felt like she was trying to tackle me. Finally I couldn't stand any more of her attacks and crumbled to the ground. Unfortunately Alice fell on top of me. And without her arms she was helpless to get back up. So she just wriggled around on my chest. "OW!" I screamed. "Help me, Edward!"

And so began one of the longest mornings of our life. All our teachers started getting annoyed with Alice and finally we were all dismissed early to get ready for the costume contest. Needless to say I was covered in bruises from where Alice had hit me. But now that we were finally getting ready for the contest she was slightly calmer and easily covered my bruises with some makeup.

RPOV

In order to prevent the same catastrophe from occurring twice, all the girls now changed in one room and the guys all changed in another. Just to throw people off Alice and I decided to switch the signs so that "Caution: Girls Changing" hung on the door to the guys' room and "Caution: Guys Changing" hung on ours.

EPOV

I knew Alice and Rosalie were switching the signs around but I didn't know why, neither of them would show me why. But I didn't dwell on it for too long. I had just taken off my school clothes and was helping Jasper zip up the back of his costume when a door opened.

"Alice if that's you, go away. We're not done changing." I heard a gasp and turned around. "Mike?"

"Edward! What – but – I – the sign said-"

"Why Mike," Emmett said, "I had no idea you thought of me that way. I'm _so touched_ you'd come and seek me out. You came all this way, it would be a shame not to let you feel them."

Mike's face went pale and he tried to back out of the room. "No! Emmett, don't! Hey, Cullen, don't just stand there! Do something about your brother! Please, anyone! Dr. Cullen, help!"

"Don't fight it, Mike," I said. "It's alright. Emmett's had his eye on you for quite some time now. Just let him guide you."

By now Emmett had captured Mike's wrist and had pressed Mike's hand onto his abs, which were bare since he was only half-dressed. By now Mike was in full squirm mode. He was desperately backing away and trying to pull his hand out of Emmett's grip. Finally Emmett released Mike's hand and he went flying across the room. He landed flat on his butt and scrambled desperately for the door. He screamed as ran out, the door slamming behind him.

And we all laughed hysterically.

"We finally got Newton," Emmett yelled, high-fiving me. Carlisle sighed and walked past us. "Edward get dressed. You, too, Emmett. The girls will be here soon."

"Correction, we already are." Rosalie stood in the doorway with a bunch of black robes. "Once you're finished getting dressed put these on. Alice says we'll want to watch some of the other people but she only just saw this and said this was easier than changing two more times."

Bella appeared in the doorway behind Rosalie, a cloak draped over her shoulders. "By the way, why does your door have a 'Caution: Girls Changing' sign on it?"

We all exchanged looks and then started laughing again.

BPOV

I didn't know why the guys' changing room had our sign on it. But I suspected it had something to do with their sign that was now hanging on our door and maybe had something to do with Jessica barging into our dressing room and yelling, "Oops, sorry Edward, I didn't mean to burst in on you while you were undressed."

APOV

I could tell everyone was annoyed at having to sit in the audience in those heavy cloaks, but it would totally be worth it.

"Come on guys, you won't want to miss this. It is going to be the highlight of your day."

BPOV

The contest was interesting but I didn't see anything that could be considered the highlight of my day. And then, just when I was about to leave, it happened.

"And now, to finish up the 'Couples Round' we have Mike and Jessica," someone said over the loudspeaker. I turned to look at Alice and Edward and raised an eyebrow at them. Edward laughed, Alice grinned. And then Alice's eyes went fuzzy and she started snickering. Edward dropped his head into his hands and whispered something to Rosalie.

And then Jessica appeared on stage. She was wearing a very strange outfit. Everyone in the audience gasped. "Mike and Jessica's theme is, uhh, 'Prince and Princess.'" The announcer said, clearing wondering what kind of Princess Jessica was supposed to be.

Jessica was wearing a cream colored leotard that was strapless and had red ribbons lacing up her sides in a corset-like pattern. She had long cream arm sleeves that had red frills at the top. Attached to her leotard was a cream skirt that was open in the front and trimmed with more red frills on the bottom. She marched out onto the stage in her best impression of a model's walk and cocked her hip at the audience.

"One day my knight in shining armor will come for me," she said, staring pointedly at Edward. I was furious. It was only by sheer force of will, and Edward's restraining arm, that I managed not to climb up on stage and beat her senseless.

And then something happened that made this all worth while.

Mike tried to run out on stage from the curtain in the back, unfortunately he got tangled up and couldn't find the slit. After about a minute he decided just to run around and come out from the wings. "My dear Princess," he called. "I have come for you!" As he rushed forward the entire audience started to snicker. He was hardly a knight in shining armor. It looked as if he had taken cardboard pizza boxes and covered them all in aluminum foil. He had a poorly made helmet, chest plate, shield and sword. He rushed forward to "claim" Jessica but somehow managed to trip over something and went flying. His hand shot out, desperate for something to steady himself on. Fortunately, he found something. Unfortunately, what he found, was Jessica's top.

I heard a slapping sound and glanced over to see Rosalie's hand covering Emmett's eyes. Jasper was smiling happily, though I prayed that he couldn't see through the bandana that was covering his eyes. Carlisle and Esme had decided this would be a good time to take a break and kiss a little and Edward was turned towards me, pinching the bridge of his nose and mumbling my name over and over again.

It must have been hard for Edward, at this point just about everyone in the audience was picturing the same thing. When Mike had tripped he had grabbed Jessica's top by accident and had pulled it all the way down her chest, finally ripping the fabric. And sadly, she wasn't wearing a bra.

"Mike, you _idiot_! I hate you!" Jessica had quickly tried to cover herself with her arms but the damage was done. She ran off stage, screaming, cursing and crying as she went.

And then it was our turn. I remembered what I had to do, but I was still a bit nervous. I was a little more comfortable since I knew I would be standing with Carlisle and Esme but I had never liked being on stage.

"And here to kick-start the 'Groups Round' is the Cullen Family with their 'Storybook Theme.'"

And that was our cue. Carlisle and Esme headed out first, meeting in the center of the stage and linking their arms. Esme looked just beautiful, playing the part of the Queen. She had a long purple dress with elbow-length sleeves with feathered ends, a fitted bodice and a long, full skirt. Next to her Carlisle was the picture of a King in his matching purple coat, puffed knee-length pants and cape. Like all Kings and Queens they had simple gold crowns on their heads.

Once they reached the end of the stage they said, "May we present, our daughter: Princess Bella." And that was my cue to enter. I stepped out from the wing and tried to walk confidently down the catwalk. Esme's look of complete love and adoration gave me more confidence and I managed to walk without tripping. Alice had given me a light blue empire waist gown. It had a white bodice and it hung off my shoulders, the sleeves falling in graceful waves all around me.

I'm glad to say the rest of our "performance" went smoothly. Alice and Jasper made perfect court jesters, flipping out on stage and performing a few tricks for their "royal family" before jingling off to the side. And then Rosalie and Emmett, dressed in glimmering body suits, kidnapped me. Then it was time for my real Prince to come save me. Edward heroically slashed past the dragons that guarded me and saved me. Thankfully this time no one rushed onto stage. But as it turns out Edward a little surprise in store for me.

EPOV

The second I saw Bella in that gown I knew that I wouldn't be able to stay away from her for long. I came very close to actually stabbing Emmett instead of just pretending to. When I finally got to Bella I couldn't resist her. She was a thousand times for beautiful up close than she was from across the stage. I said the lines that Alice had given me and then I had placed my hands on either side of her face and kissed her. I could feel her initial shock and felt her cheeks blaze beneath my hands. But soon she had given in and kissed me back. She wrapped her arms around my neck and came very close to shattering my willpower. If it hadn't been for the roaring crowd and all the disappointed thoughts of the girls in the audience I don't know I would have been able to stop myself.

As it was I scooped her up into my arms and carried her offstage with the rest of my family. I have never been happier.

BPOV

I have never been more embarrassed.

EmPOV

I have never been more outraged. How could Rosalie let me miss Jessica's wardrobe fiasco? Everyone else got to see it!

Mike's POV

Well we didn't win the 'Couples Round' and the Cullens won the 'Groups Round' for a second time in a row. But, I did get to see a whole lot more of Jessica. Which, in my opinion, totally makes up for having that stupid Emmett Cullen flirt with me and make me touch his abs.

All in all, today was a pretty good day.

Jessica's POV

Worst. Day. Ever.


	4. 10 and 1 Ways to Impress Your Girlfriend

***Co-author uses Sheika as a shield* Hi everyone! Sorry it's taken us so long to update this . . . since August, really. But, it's not like we were inactive! We were writing Prank Wars, which originally was going to be part of this story but it was too much fun so we just had to make it into a whole separate story. Anywho, to make up for our long absence, we have an extra long chapter! And our usual mischief ensues. If you read our other stories, you might notice one or two recurring themes. :D Well, anyway, please enjoy this latest chapter!**

Chapter 4: Ten and One Ways to Impress Your Girlfriend

Theme: Dancer

EPOV

Well, we were the winners for the Groups category again. That's not a surprise. The surprise came when we were driving home from the school and were driving down the highway, towards our house. I was driving, because Emmett couldn't pay attention for long enough to get us home. But then, suddenly, something caught my eye. It was bright and flashy neon and something about it just drew me in.

I swerved across six lanes of traffic and zoomed into the parking lot, an orchestra of blaring horns followed in my wake. I quickly pulled into a parking spot and we all stuck out heads out of a window, or moon roof, to see just where I had stopped. A large neon sign informed us we had arrived at the "Miracle Club."

"Nice job, Edward," Emmett said, sticking his head into the front seat and holding up his hand for a high five. I glared at him and climbed out of the car.

"Edward," Bella called. "Where are you going?"

BPOV

What was Edward thinking, going into a naughty club like that?!

"Come on Bella, we're waiting." I turned to see everyone else heading into the club after Edward. Alice had her hands on her hips and was staring at me through the window. She smiled evilly, "If you don't get over here by the time I count to three we're going to drag you in!"

I didn't even hear her say three. Which, I guess would be the point. Anyway, the next thing I knew, I was inside a loud, surprisingly bright club. In front of me were all kinds of people in a horde of strange outfits. Every type of dance outfit from all around the world could be seen. And that's when I noticed the sign that said "Costume Night."

How convenient. And that's when I thought to look at what I was wearing, just to make sure Alice hadn't done anything crazy. She had. Working from my feet up I discovered I was no longer wearing my comfy sneakers. Instead I had black stiletto heels on and fishnet tights. But what was really disturbing was the little leotard that Alice had me in. I looked like a playboy bunny!

It was skin color and almost invisible on me, it was very seductively cut around my hip area and I couldn't believe this could be considered clothing. I had a sheer wrap-around mini-skirt that didn't do much of anything to cover me. It had absolutely no back and it only got worse from there. I had two big pink bows wrapped around me. One around my hips and one around my chest; and on my hands were white lace gloves with more little pink bows on them.

"Alice how could you?!"

Alice just shrugged. "It looks adorable on you. Oh and try not to sit in anything, there's writing on the back bow."

I glared. "What does it say?"

Alice giggled. "Unwrap me," she said quietly.

I screamed and stormed off, or tried to. I tripped and managed to catch myself on something I soon wished I had never seen. I had caught myself on a steel bar that was attached to a cage that was lined with little flashing lights. And you would never believe who was inside the cage.

Not Jasper, he was on the pole and wearing a disturbing combination of platform boots, leather mini-shorts, and a mesh top. All in black. He was also wearing a thick layer of eyeliner, mascara, black lipstick and a fair amount of liner. And, to top it all off, he had painted his fingernails jet black.

Not Emmett, who was busy trying to the robot in a giant circle of people in the middle of the dance floor.

Not Edward, who was mirroring Emmett in the middle of the dance floor.

Not Rosalie, who was busy chatting up one of the male dancers in a cage across the room.

Not Esme, who . . . where was Esme anyway? I didn't see her anywhere.

But I would have to find her later, because right now I was being pulled into a cage by none other than Carlisle. He wasn't dressed strangely, at the very least, but he had ripped his open and was dancing in a very disturbing manner. Usually Carlisle was so reformed and proper. So it was rather traumatizing to see him dancing like a teenager. He pulled me into the cage and started dancing with me.

"Carlisle what are you doing?"

He just laughed. "Lighten up, Bella, it's a party!"

Maybe it was the music, maybe it was the way Carlisle was already forcing me to dance with him, maybe it was Jasper or maybe it was the group of people who had gathered around our cage and begun to cheer us on, but all of a sudden, dancing sounded pretty good. So that's exactly what I did. And I must say we were pretty good. So many people were cheering that they moved our cage to the center of the room.

Of course, that's when Edward finally noticed that his girlfriend was dancing in a cage with his father in a playboy bunny suit which, I later learned, also included white bunny ears with more pink bows.

"Bella!" He screamed, abandoning his robot moves and jumping up to the door of the cage. Of course, this brought a lot of attention to Edward and there was a moment of silence as every girl in the club noticed him. And then there was an ear-splitting scream and they all lunged for him at once. Soon the only thing left was a single pale hand waving frantically from a crowd of fangirls.

"And that's our cue to exit stage right," Carlisle said, taking my hand and leading me carefully through the crowd towards Esme and Rosalie, who were waiting at the door. Alice was busy trying to pry Jasper off the pole and Emmett had been left in charge of getting Edward.

APOV

I have never been more embarrassed. Jasper wouldn't stop dancing on that pole. He wasn't even good. I kept telling him he needed to practice more, he still couldn't handle anything upside down, I could show him a million times and he never got it right. Well, so much for that club. At least I got a bunch of great ideas for Halloween costumes.

JPOV

I made $50!

EPOV

"Well that was a very conveniently placed club."

"Yeah," Alice said, "I got a lot of great costume ideas from all the different costumed dancers."

"Oh no," Bella groaned.

"Oh yes," Alice chirped.

"Maybe we'll have to come back here again, sometime. I think we all had fun," I said.

"Speak for yourself," Bella said, crossing her arms over her chest. But I could see that she was trying not to smile.

"It certainly is an interesting club," Carlisle said.

"What club," Esme asked.

"What do you mean," I asked, turning around to look at the club.

But the club wasn't there anymore. In its place was just a parking lot filled with cars for the cheap motel that occupied the other side of the lot. We looked at each other, Jasper and Bella were still dressed in strange outfits, Carlisle's shirt was still open and we all had gotten our hands stamped. But none of us could see the club. It had disappeared . . .

BPOV

Needless to say I was not at all happy with Alice and changed back into my normal clothes just as soon as I got home. Sadly, that didn't stop the wacky shenanigans on the ride home. I kept getting tricked into pressing myself up against the glass just as someone I knew drove by. Several times I was pressed up by force. By the time we got to the Cullen's house we had freaked out Jessica, a friend of Charlie's, Charlie, and caused Mike to swerve off the road into the woods.

After we got home I threw the crazy outfit into the trash and changed into an even more conservative outfit than ever. And then I went to go supervise Alice, Rosalie and Esme in the sewing room. Unfortunately, there wasn't much I could do to fend them off. And they made some very good arguments whenever I tried to resist. I always hated being measured for a new costume.

"Alice, stop it! Why can't I just sit in the corner and make sure you don't put me in anything crazy?"

"Well then we're left with two options. Either, one, the outfit is too big and when you go onto stage it will fall off and everyone will see your chest." I blushed furiously. "Or, two, it'll be too small and where ever you go people will see your chest." I glared. Alice grinned and continued measuring me.

By the next morning we had several outfits completed. Alice was working out the minor details, shoes, accessories and whatnot. Rosalie and Esme had the difficult task of teaching me how to dance. And after I had been up all night, too. Which I suppose made it easier for them.

EsPOV

It's so much easier to teach sleep-zombie Bella to dance than regular Bella. Truthfully, she is three times clumsier but she learns surprisingly quick and she isn't being stubborn at all. Which, if she knew what she was learning, she would be very stubborn.

RPOV

It is so much fun to play with sleep-zombie Bella. She's so impressionable. After an hour or two of dancing Bella's stomach started to growl. "Alright," I said, "Breakfast time for the human."

Bella grumbled something about how she hated being called "the human" but we all ignored her. Alice hopped off her designer's chair and followed us downstairs to the kitchen.

"What do you want for breakfast, dear?" Esme asked.

Bella mumbled something completely incoherent. We all stared at her for a minute.

"Pizza it is," I said.

We started to gather the items but we quickly discovered that we didn't have any grated cheese, only the big blocks of cheese. And we couldn't find a grater anywhere. So we decided to get the next best thing.

EPOV

Once the girls had gone downstairs to feed Bella we all snuck inside to try on our costumes and practice the dances Alice had picked out for us. Along one side of the room were pairings of steam press manikins each wearing a different outfit. We grabbed our outfits and changed into them quickly, intending to start practicing right away, but instead spending several minutes admiring ourselves in the mirror.

Finally we started to dance, though. And we were terrible. But then, I got an idea.

"Emmett, I can't do this by myself."

"It's all about the visualization, little bro."

"I'm older than you, and I need a physical partner."

"I'll do it," Jasper volunteered; I put my hand over his face and pushed him away.

"And," Carlisle piped up, catching onto my plan. "It really is easier to learn by example. So that's why you should use this!" Carlisle plopped the manikin with Rosalie's dress down in front of Emmett.

Emmett looked at the manikin for a moment. Then he pulled the dress down and started to tear the stuffing off the manikin. He pulled the dress back up and looked at it again. Then he grabbed handfuls of cotton stuffing and started to fill the bodice of the dress.

EmPOV

I had to make a few adjustments to the manikin before I could start dancing with it. After all, it had to look like Rosalie before the eyes of my heart could open.

_**SPARKLYDEE**_

Emmett's Inner Mind Theater

The eyes of my heart opened and I saw my beautiful Rosalie standing before me in a stunning dress. I extended my hand to her as music began to filter through the air. But I couldn't capture her hand, she was completely evading me, and giggling while she did so. Finally I just grabbed her around the waist and started to dance.

EPOV

The only thing better than watching Emmett try to dance with a manikin, and believe me, almost nothing could be better than watching him try to grab the manikin's non-existent hand for a good two minutes, was seeing what he imagined was going on. In his mind Rosalie was fawning over him and was stunned by his skills. In reality, we were stunned, too. But we were stunned at how easy it was to make Emmett look like a total moron. And the best part was yet to come.

EmPOV

I finished the brief routine, a little too brief if you ask me, and tried to congratulate my love with a kiss. I slipped my hand up the slit in the skirt and pulled her close to me. And that's when I heard it.

"Emmett Dorothy Cullen."

"Is his middle name really Dorothy?!"

"What on earth are you doing?"

"Rosalie! The real one!" The eyes of my heart shot closed with a bang and I realized how stupid this must have looked. I tossed the manikin away and tried to look normal.

It didn't work.

So I enacted my fool-proof escape plan.

"It was all Edward's idea! Right Edward?" But Edward was nowhere to be found. "Carlisle knew what Edward was planning. He can tell you it wasn't my idea!" But Carlisle was gone, too. "Jasper . . ." I ventured warily. But Jasper was trying to make out with the Alice manikin.

That didn't work either, so much for fool-proof.

I settled for smiling weakly at Rosalie and putting on my cutest face.

Three guesses to how that turned out.

EPOV

The girls led me into the kitchen, which should have immediately gotten me worried. Bad things always happened when Bella and a vampire met in the kitchen. The more vampires, the worse. But, I still too trusting of my girlfriend and my family, I really need to work on that.

"What's going on, Bella? You need my help for something?"

"Take of your shirt."

"What?!" I was alarmed. Bella was never this frank with me, and certainly not in front of my family. She should be bright red and fidgeting by now; instead she just stared at me and repeated herself.

"Take off your shirt."

I looked at Bella, then at Esme, who was smiling a bit too much, then to Rosalie, who was downright sneering. Then I reluctantly began to unbutton my shirt.

"Come on, Edward," Bella said. "It's all or none and I choose none!" Bella ripped my shirt open for me; clearly annoyed at my slow pace.

Unlike Emmett I didn't make a habit of walking around shirtless in front of my family. I looked away and pretended to be fascinated with the flowers outside the window. This is why I didn't see Bella approach with something horrible in her hand. I felt something cold and squishy press against my abs. I looked down and was surprised to find a block of bleu cheese pressed up against my abs.

"Bella," I said cautiously, "What on earth are you . . ."

"You told me that your abs are so firm that I can grate cheese on them right?"

"Well . . . I suppose I did say that . . . once. But that's hardly a reason to-"

"And we need grated cheese. But we don't have a cheese grater, so we're using your abs."

And then she started the rub the cheese up and down, smiling excitedly when bits of cheese began to fall off the block. Rosalie grabbed a bowl and held it below my abs so that it would catch the falling cheese and Bella kept on grating the cheese. Unfortunately, my abs made a very poor cheese grater, most of the cheese just stuck to me instead of falling into the bowl.

Finally the block of cheese had been reduced to a tiny, crumbly piece and Bella just threw it in the bowl and then surveyed my abs.

RPOV

Bella was still a bit of a zombie but I intended to wake her up. There was nothing like a hot meal to wake someone up in the morning!

EsPOV

Most of the cheese just stuck to Edward, as Rosalie predicted. I didn't like the mess it made, but I was happy to be rid of that bleu cheese, it smelled terrible.

We decided there wasn't enough cheese in the bowl to use on the pizza so we just improvised. Two jars of tomato sauce, a package of pepperoni, and every possible pizza topping ever created, including pineapple, later we had finished our masterpiece.

EPOV

I'd really like to know how I ended up becoming a vampire pizza.

EsPOV

All that was left to do was pop it in the oven. This proved to be much more difficult than one would imagine.

RPOV

We folded Edward up like an origami pizza-vampire and tried to stuff him in the oven. Sadly, he was just too big to fit. So that left us with no other choice.

"EMMETT GET DOWN HERE!"

Emmett appeared instantly.

"Yes, what do you need my help with, ladies?"

"We need you to cramp Edward inside the oven."

Emmett took one look at Edward and one look at the oven and nodded. "The solution is simple. You just have to do it really quickly, just cram him in there." My husband took a running start, from several rooms away, and charged at Edward, who realized a little too late what was going on and tried to run. Luckily Emmett was faster and managed to cram him into the oven. Just before we shut him in I caught a glimpse of Edward in yet another uncomfortable position. His feet were pressed against the side wall, one on either side of his head, and his spine appeared to be taking on an L shape. I just chuckled and locked him in.

BPOV

We should really clean up some of the dishes and everything. I'll just stick them in the dishwasher.

EsPOV

Edward went through three stages while in that oven. Stage one lasted about a minute and a half. Somewhat violent shaking of the oven in an attempt to break the lock and mild cursing. Stage two lasted only about ten seconds. Complete silence and motionlessness. Apparently Edward was trying to play dead in hopes we would let him out. When he saw that wouldn't work he enacted stage three. Extremely violent shaking of the oven, violent swearing and also, some very manly crying.

BPOV

Huh, their dishwasher seems to be broken. Maybe if I take the bottom tray out I can fix the problem.

EmPOV

The only reason I opened the door was because I couldn't stand to listen to Edward whine anymore. Honestly there's nothing worse than having to watch a grown, male vampire sit around and cry because it's a little hot.

RPOV

Emmett opened the door to the oven and Edward fell out. He just twitched on the floor for a couple of seconds before he realized he was on fire. Then he began to spasm on the floor, begging for mercy. So we gave him mercy.

BPOV

Hrm, it appears that the fan blades at the bottom here aren't functioning correctly. Arg, my hair keeps getting in my eyes and falling in front of my face.

CPOV

I was trying to get some work done in my office, a feat that I should have long ago realized was impossible. It was a miracle I got work done even while at the hospital. Frankly I'm surprised the entire town of Forks hasn't gone up in flames with all the crazy shenanigans that my family causes.

For once I was actually making some progress with some of my paperwork. And that's when all the noise caught up to me.

_CRASHYBOOM!_

I know that sound.

_BZRRRRRRRRG!_

I don't know that sound.

_CAA-CAA-CAA-CAA!_

And that's just Jasper being silly.

I went downstairs to investigate the other two noises. The first I had recognized as the sound of something being thrown out a window. I was just glad that it wasn't me this time. It turns out that Edward had somehow caught fire and had been thrown out the front window to roll around and put the fire out. Or just lay twitching on the ground and then run around screaming that he wasn't a teller of untruths so he didn't understand why his trousers had combusted.

The second sound, I quickly discovered, was the sound of Bella's hair getting caught in the dishwasher while it was running. I didn't know which part of that was the stupidest. For Bella's hair to get caught in the motor propellers, she would have either had to turn it on and stick her head inside, or convince someone to turn it on while her head was in there. Either way it was a stupid move on her part.

Bella was now dangling out of the dishwasher, her legs kicking frantically and her . . . rear end dancing frantically.

BPOV

WHAT THE -**vampire swears-** AM I DOING IN A DISHWASHER WHILE IT'S RUNNING?!

RPOV

"Well, Bella's awake."

_CAA-CAA-CAA-CAA!_

"Jasper, get back here!"

"I'm not even going to ask."

"Help!" Bella had somehow managed to get her head stuck in the dishwasher, a feat all of us thought near impossible, but frankly, it was Bella. And she attracted danger like a magnet.

While Alice, Carlisle, Esme and I tried to get Bella untangled from the dishwasher propeller Emmett and Jasper chased Edward around the yard. Edward's pants were stubbornly refusing to extinguish, which left him being a smoky, shirtless mess. He was pretty annoyed with all of us.

EmPOV

Edward was really mad. He didn't even chuckle when I said, "Darn, Edward, you're smoking!" He just glared.

"Would it help if I apologized?"

The look on his face told me it might help.

"Well I'm not going to. That was fun. So how about I take you Newton-tipping to make up for it?" The smile that spread over Edward's face answered my question. "Then let's go!"

"Newton-tipping?" Bella shouted from inside, jerking her head out of the dishwasher and effectively tearing a large chunk of hair out of her head. "What's that? Can I come?"

"Bella, love," Edward said cautiously, "What's happened to your hair?"

"Of course you can come," I bellowed.

"Alright!" Bella jumped up and rushed out the front door, leaping into the back of my Jeep and sticking her head out the moon roof. "Let's go vampires!"

So Edward, Jasper, Alice and I all rushed out and piled into my Jeep. And then we were off, racing through the streets of Forks trying to find Newton.

RPOV

"Great, now how are we going to make the final adjustments? We can't have the outfits falling apart on stage," I said.

"And we need to make sure everyone knows their dances."

Esme and I turned to look at Carlisle, who had been trying to slink out of the room without being seen. When he realized we were starting at him he tried to run away. But we were too quick for him. We dragged him upstairs and forced him to wear all the different outfits and dance around in them.

And did we mention that Carlisle makes a perfect Bella-stand in?

CPOV

Normally I would never have imagined cross-dressing like Jasper does. But I must admit, now that I've tried it, it's fabulous! I look absolutely adorable in this outfit.

EsPOV

Now I know how Alice feels.

BPOV

We crouched in the shade of some trees at the edge of the park. We had found Newton walking through the park, yammering pointlessly, with Jessica at his side. Jessica looked very bored and Mike looked ecstatic.

"Alright," I whispered. "What's the plan?" No one said anything. "You _do_ have a plan, right guys?" I turned around to look at them. They were all looking off in random directions and fiddling with their hands. "Oh come on! What do you usually do?"

"Well, usually we just push him over and then . . . not let him get up . . ." Emmett trailed off vaguely.

I sighed and hung my head. Then I got an idea.

"Oh, oh," Alice said, bouncing excitedly, "I like Bella's plan!"

"Here's the plan," I grinned in spite of myself and launched into a detailed plan that was completely fool-proof. No one, not Jasper, not me, could mess this up! Even the guys agreed that it was a good idea.

"Commence Operation Newton-Tipping."

APOV

If I had chosen to think this through, at all, I probably would have stopped to reconsider the outfits we were wearing. For starters, Jasper had somehow gotten his hands on skin-tight gold leggings and had paired them with a silver large-sequined mini-dress and glittery accessories. But the most horrifying thing of all was his choice of shoes; platform, 3-inch boots made of see-through rubber and filled with liquid glitter and rubber daisy flowers. Just looking at him could blind you, if you didn't jab your eyes out first, that is.

Emmett was wearing his favorite "work-out gear" as he constantly, and cheerfully, put it. He had stolen one of Rosalie's sports bras and stretched it over his massive, muscled chest. He had also taken the liberty of painting little smiley faces on it in yellow glitter fabric paint. He usually spent a good ten minutes making these faces "dance" whenever he put the bra on, which happened at least once a day. He also borrowed a pair of Rosalie's shorts and written "Eddie Sucks" on the back of them, also in yellow glitter paint. He had chosen not to wear shoes in order to show off his neon pink toenails with little white hearts that he had painted earlier that day.

Bella still had a chunk of hair missing from the side of her head and was wearing way too many layers in an attempt to be conservative. Basically it was a turtleneck and jeans underneath a baggy t-shirt and even baggier cargo pants. Which were both underneath some old slip dress that may or may not have been a sheet at one point, which was underneath a rubber smock, last used for finger painting and, to top it all off, a rainbow, leopard _and_ zebra print Snoogle-Buddy, which wasn't more than backwards robe made in size XXXXL and available in pretty, or stupid, colors.

And of course, there was Edward. His pants were still smoking, literally smoking, and his shirt had completely burned off of his chest. The edges of his hair were singed and there were burn stripes over his back and his chest where he had been pressed up against the rack of the oven.

But, what could I say? This would make for an entertaining video.

"Lights?"

"Nonexistent."

"Camera?"

"Right here!"

"Action," I yelled.

EPOV

Looking back on this moment, I really should have asked Bella what her plan to distract Mike was _before_ we started the operation. Alice was already filming and was ushering us out into the open. Sadly, all I could do was look helpless and play along. This turned out to be very easy.

Bella stormed out of the bushes, running right across Newton's path.

"But Bella love," I cried, trying to catch her.

"No," she shouted, spinning to face me. "Stay away from me, Edward. You son of a **cupcake panda **I ought to **strawberry **your **twinkles** for all that **fluffy panda**. So shut your **unicorn** mouth and leave me alone!"

BPOV

Okay so maybe I went a little overboard with the cursing.

EPOV

Bella was cursing like a sailor.

EmPOV

She sounded like my wife.

BPOV

I may have drawn some inspiration from a certain blonde vampire.

Mike's POV

I heard cursing and thought that maybe Rosalie was in the park. But instead, I saw my lovely Bella. And she was even more wonderful today because she was carrying a pile of old clothes that she was going to donate to the poor. Isn't she sweet? Why is she missing a chunk of hair? Oh, she must have donated it.

Jessica's POV

Oh my gosh. Edward is looking so hot today. Wow, he is _smoking_, I'm serious, he is! This is crazy. He looks like he's on fire! Wait . . . what's all that grey-ish black stuff coming off his pants?

BPOV

Almost time!

Mike was bouncing happily towards me, already babbling about how wonderful I looked, what a jerk Cullen was and all sorts of random nonsense.

"Oh just shut up, Newton!" I screamed in his face and pushed him as hard as I could. This, thankfully, sent him flailing backwards right into the conveniently waiting port-a-potty. Emmett and Jasper tackled Newton's port-a-potty, making it crash to the ground so that the door was pressed against the ground. Inside Mike banged helplessly against the door and cried pathetically for his mommy to come save him. And apparently bring him a new pair of pants.

Jessica's POV

I don't really know what happened. One minute I was enjoying the view of Edward and then suddenly two strange things flew past me. One looked like it escaped from some seventies music video and the other one was nothing but tight purple spandex that threatened to break at any moment and glittery fabric paint.

And then I noticed Bella, running away laughing hysterically in what looked every bit like a Snoogle-Buddy. Geez, why does Edward put up with her? I mean, if a Snoogle-Buddy was what he was into, I would look a thousand times better in one that Bella does. Hrm, that gives me an idea.

BPOV

I don't really remember anything that happened between that morning, when we really should have been in school, and that afternoon, when we were in school and getting ready for the costume contest. All I could remember was a strange blue-grey fog that seemed to envelope everything around us.

I tried to ask Alice if she knew what was that was about. "Alice, do you remember anything from before this moment that doesn't include blue-grey fog?"

Alice turned to face me slowly. "Don't question the fog, Bella," she said in a slow, serious voice.

I shuddered and decided not to question the fog as a chill settled on my shoulders.

Rosalie sighed, "Alice, he's doing it again!"

Alice groaned and banged on the wall next to us. "Jasper! Knock off the chills!" The chills instantly disappeared. "Thank you, dear!" Alice turned to me. "Now, Bella, its time to get you into your costume."

"Uh-oh," I said. For some reason, I couldn't remember anything about my costume. And if I couldn't remember then it must be bad. Really bad.

CPOV

"Alright," Edward said, "They're starting!"

I pulled out the chart and started the stopwatch. Exactly 42 seconds later we heard an ear-piercing scream that signaled the end of the bet.

"Alright, who had Bella between 40 and 50 seconds?"

"Me," Emmett yelled, starting a triumphant victory dance around the boys' locker room the school had thought to use as a changing room for the guys participating in the costume contest.

He started dancing around and singing "I won and Eddie lost, I won and Eddie lost," and grabbed several partners along the way. Each more baffled and horrified than the last. Needless to say when he grabbed a boy by the name of Dylan and twirling him in the air above his head the trauma level reached new heights. Especially considering Emmett wasn't wearing any pants and only had a shirt hanging around his neck and Dylan was in the middle of changing into his costume.

Once Emmett set Dylan down his face was as red as his hair, which was a glowing orange that highlighted his Irish roots. Emmett finally set him down and said, "I won a bet," as if that would explain and excuse his actions.

Emmett walked calmly over to us and held out his hand. We all grudgingly slapped twenty dollars into his outstretched hand. "Thank you," he said and then turned to walk away, right out the door.

"Emmett," I called.

"Yeah, Carlisle?"

"Your pants?"

"Pants? I don't need pants!" And with that he wandered out into the hallway.

Someone screamed and then Rosalie could be heard yelling "Emmett put your pants on!"

"Don't you dare," Alice said, cutting off any witty comeback Emmett might have had.

He sulked back into the room and got dressed like the rest of us. Edward fixed his hair while I stretched my arms and Jasper practiced a few quick twirls with his staff. Once we were all ready we went out into the hall to meet up with the girls. Alice couldn't stop laughing, and Edward soon joined her. Bella couldn't seem to cover herself enough and was pulling her robe tighter around her body every minute or so. Rosalie was making every girl who walked by jealous and making every guy filled with desire. With a little extra help from Jasper of course. Soon everyone in the hallway was going crazy. Guys were fighting each other, trying to claim Rosalie, girls were crying and hitting their boyfriends, Bella had gone into complete panic mode and Esme was trying to calm her down.

And, somehow unaffected in the center of the storm, stood a familiar, and very determined face. I stared at her for a moment, and then nudged Edward, already chuckling at the chaos that was sure to ensue.

"Edward," I whispered just loud enough for him to hear, "You've got a visitor."

Edward gave me a puzzled look until he noticed Jessica. A loud laugh burst from his lips before he could stop it. He quickly covered his mouth tried to assume control himself.

"Hello Jessica," he said, walking over to her side.

Behind them, Alice started nudging Bella in the ribs and pointing over to Jessica. We all gathered around to watch as Jessica tried to strike a seductive pose.

"Edward," she said quietly, looking up at him through her lashes. "I saw Bella wearing this the other day," she gestured to her rainbow leopard and zebra Snoogle-Buddy. "But it really didn't look at that good on Bella. I thought you should know how it _should_ look."

Jessica's POV

Edward was stunned. He was biting his luscious lip, clearly trying not to let Bella see how gorgeous he thought I was. He was melting when I started to peek up at him through my eyelashes. And all around me guys were fighting to get closer to me and girls were screaming and crying with envy.

EPOV

Jessica looked completely ridiculous. She was trying to seduce me, that much was clear. But when she looked up at me, she had her head tilted, like she as trying to hide something from me. And I couldn't, for the life of me, understand why she thought I liked Snoogle-Buddies. Honestly, they're the most pointless invention. And I've had a long life and seen some pretty pointless inventions.

But things only got stranger from there. Jessica kept yammering on about looking beautiful in her strange Snoogle-Buddy and how Bella didn't deserve to be my girlfriend, complete nonsense. And then, she put her hands on her shoulders and fisted pieces of the fabric. And that's when I knew something bad was going to happen. I spun around and shielded my eyes just as Jessica cast off her Snoogle-Buddy, revealing absolutely everything.

The hallway went silent and Jessica slowly realized that she had just flashed everyone in the hallway, except for Edward, the one person she wanted to flash. She stood there in complete shock for a moment. No one moved, no one did anything. Until Emmett got a bright idea.

EmPOV

Now usually I don't mind girls flashing people. But this time was different. Plus, as a side note, Rosalie is way hotter. And since everyone else was too shocked to do anything else or help Jessica get dressed again so I took action. And it just so happens that I carry around a very special bottle for just such an occasion.

A few quick swipes and Jessica was dressed again.

Jessica's POV

I was stunned. I did not expect anything like this to happen. I never would have guessed that Edward would turn away. I didn't think there would be so many people staring at me for so long. Edward was supposed to see me, fall completely in love with me and sweep me away to privacy.

I guess I was standing there with my mouth open for a bit too long because the next thing I knew, I was wearing a whipped cream bikini.

EmPOV

I think that's the first time a whipped cream bikini has actually worked.

EPOV

I decided to leave before Newton came running around the corner and started accusing me of stupid things. So I spread my arms and corralled my family into the auditorium where we could watch the costumes in relative peace.

BPOV

I was all too happy to get out of that hallway and away from Jessica. As we were leaving I heard the principal come and start corralling everyone away saying, "Alright everyone, get ready or get going. Alright come – Miss Stanley, what are you wearing? Put some clothes on!"

I guess someone must have thrown the Snoogle-Buddy back over Jessica because I heard someone come skidding around the corner and then Mike's voice cursing and screaming, "Not again!"

I just chose to ignore him and followed the Cullens into the auditorium. Esme, Carlisle and I sat down and saved some seats while the rest of the Cullens began taping off areas on either side of the stage and moving the chairs out of the way. Then they posted several large signs that said "Warning: Fire Zone. First 5 rows will be burned." I turned to ask what this was about but decided against it.

The first few rounds of the costume contest went by without issue. It wasn't until Mike and Jessica that things started to go wrong.

Mike's POV

I waited eagerly in the wings, just waiting for my cue to go on stage. When Jessica suggested that we be rockers, I was so excited. I was overjoyed when she told me I would make a rocking rapper I would make.

Jessica's POV

I was determined to recover from my little Edward fiasco earlier. And this outfit would make me a star again. I was actually a bit surprised that Mike agreed to be a nutcracker. I was sure he was going to say that it was too out-of-season for me to be a Rockette and for him to be a nutcracker, but he got all excited and agreed really quickly. Go figure.

Mike's POV

I heard my cue and swaggered my way out onto stage. I did a few moves and then started to spin on my head in a move I had learned overnight.

Jessica's POV

I made my grand entrance onto stage, and almost fell right off the stage. Right in front of me was a twirling idiot. Mike had misheard nutcracker for rapper and was currently trying to break dance. Emphasis on trying. He kept falling over and starting and stopping. Well I tried to ignore him and started in with my kicks.

Mike stopped with his back to the audience and tried to whisper to me, asking what I was doing. I ignored him and kept kicking. Unfortunately he got a little too close to me and when I kicked I happened to send my 5 inch heel into his groin. Mike went down hard and screamed loudly for the second time that day, sobbing in a voice that was at least an octave higher than usual.

"And the Rockette takes the rapper down," The announcer yelled. "Thank you Mike and Jessica for finishing up our couples round. Everyone, please give a round of applause to the Rockette and the Rapper. Once again, I'm Eric here with my partner Erin and we'll be your new announcers for the remainder of this contest. Next up is the Cullen family displaying their 'Dancer Theme.'"

BPOV

Mike and Jessica filed off the stage and we got ready to go on. Carlisle and Esme started. Gentlemen first this time. Carlisle danced elegantly out onto stage and waited for Esme to appear. He wore a full-body black leotard that was common among male ballet dancers and a tuxedo jacket with long coat-tails over it. And then, Esme appeared at the side, an angelic vision in her dress. She had a stiff, cream colored tutu skirt that was covered with lace, a matching corset bodice and decorative puffs on her upper arms, serving as sleeves. Her hair was tied up in a tight bun and she danced En Pointe towards Carlisle, who curtsied to her. They danced to the center of the stage where Carlisle lifted her high above her head. They parted ways at the end of the stage and next came the daring duo.

Emmett sashayed his way onto the stage wearing a ridiculous salsa dancer outfit. His shirt was cut halfway down his torso and made of an almost-completely sheer black glitter fabric. He had slicked his hair back and was using a lot of unnecessary pelvic thrusts, which was exciting some of the girls in the crowd. But his pants were the real spotlight of the outfit, they flared at the bottom but hugged his hips and each side was decorated with a swirling sequin design that caught the light when he moved. Then Rosalie appeared in a stunning red dress with a low neckline and a high slash up her right thigh. Her blonde hair hung freely about her face and she moved gracefully even in extremely high heels. They salsa quick-stepped to the end of the stage and Emmett dipped Rosalie deeply before parting ways.

Alice and Jasper were next and they weren't about to miss a chance to perform. Alice appeared with a flourish to a quick island drum beat. She had on a bright pink bikini top with matching bottoms that were hidden under a green grass skirt. Around her hips, wrists, and ankles were strings of flowers. She started by swinging her hips in a neat circle and then rocketed her way up the stage with some sharp hip swings. She stopped around the center of the stage and kept her arms at chest level, swinging her hips in that same sharp manner to the beat of the song. And then came Jasper, flipping clear over Alice's head and landing safely in front of her. In his hands he held a staff that was actually on fire. He twirled it calmly and showed off her bare chest while Alice continued dancing.

Now, here's where things started to get messy. Mike had snuck into the Burn Zone to try and get some good pictures of Alice dancing. And Jasper had cleared that section for when he did his fire breathing. This was now. He dived to the left of the stage and breathed a controlled flame into the empty area, harming nothing. The he dove right and breathed another controlled flame. Although this one seemed to be aimed directly at Mike, who promptly caught fire and began rolling around on the floor, crying for his mommy for the second time that day. As usual, everyone ignored him.

And then it was our turn. But there was no way I was going out onto that stage. Nope. Nothing could possibly move me. Except, that is, a push from a vampire and a telepathic boost of confidence. Both of which were supplied by Jasper. I would have to kill him later.

I leaped out onto stage with a flash and jingle. It was a miracle that Jasper could control my embarrassment, though I would realize later that it was causing him to make stupid faces at everyone around him. I had on deep red skirt with a matching hip scarf covered in gold sequins that jingled every time I moved. I had on a red tube top and a lot of glitter and jewels around my belly button, just like the stereotypical belly dancer. I started to wiggle my way up the stage, jingling loudly and showing off moves I hadn't realized I had learned. At the front of the stage I held my arms above my head and wiggled away, waiting for Edward who snuck up behind me and pressed his hips to my own. He was wearing white pants with a red hip scarf that jingled just like mine. But what had sold me on his outfit, at first at least, was that he had no shirt on. This meant that he would be embarrassing himself just as much as I would. Once he was behind me we lowered our arms and let the energy flow through us, waving our arms at our sides so that it looked like they were waving.

After we were done we joined the rest of his family at the front of the stage. We tried to take a bow and I ended up falling off the stage, at least I started to. Edward tried to catch me, but because we were in front of a room of normal humans, he couldn't move as quickly as usual. So then he started to fall off the stage. So Emmett dove dramatically, complete with war cry, and tried to save him. Needless to say that didn't work. And soon all of us had formed a clumsy, falling chain. This ended with me being crushed underneath four male vampires. Oh yeah Edward, I'm _real_ impressed.

APOV

We headed home after the costume contest and while the guys went to go be stupid, the girls sat around to chat a little before we started working again.

"Man," Bella whined, plopping into a chair. "Is it just me or are the guys stupider than usual today?"

"I know," Rosalie said. "Were they trying to impress us or something? Like when Emmett was making out with my manikin."

"Or when Edward was going ballistic just from being locked in the oven," Bella said.

"Or when he was set on fire and ran around the yard screaming," Esme recalled.

"Jasper's complete lack of fashion sense. I mean, really, gold leggings _and_ a silver sequined dress? Please."

"Oh, what about Newton wetting his pants when we knocked the port-a-potty over!"

"Or when my husband was enjoying wearing Bella's costume a bit too much."

"What?"

"Nothing, dear," Esme smiled sweetly.

"Or when Emmett won the bet to see when Bella would freak out after seeing her outfit and he started dancing around the locker room nearly naked with another guy?"

We all laughed. "Or when Emmett made a whipped cream bikini for Jessica. Honestly," Rosalie sighed. "What was he thinking?"

"What about how Newton was crying when Jessica kicked him in the groin. You would think he'd be used to that by now."

"I still like how he was crying for his mommy when Jasper set him on fire."

"But I think the dog pile at the end of the contest takes the cake. I mean, really, crushing me does not impress me, Edward!"

We all laughed again.

"Well, the guys certainly have come up with ten and one ways to 'impress' us," I said.


	5. Recipe for Fun: Pie, Rum and Mayhem

**Alright, HELLO EVERYONE! Let me just say that I'm terribly sorry for the delay. This chapter was so . . . beyond words. I had inspiration, then I lost it, I had ideas but no time, I had time but no ideas. By the end I just wanted to shoot this chapter with Rosalie's tranquilizer gun! By somehow I made it through with some help from my wonderful co-author. And as a special treat for waiting patiently for so long, this is probably our longest chapter to date. Twenty pages in word and 11,617 words without this author's comment section. We beat up Mike significantly more and we even appear in the chapter! Can you guess which ones we are? ;) Also, see below for a special offer!**

**All characters are (c) Stephenie Meyer, we just make them do stupid things.**

Chapter 5: Recipe For Fun: Pie, Rum and a Dash of Mayhem

Theme: Magic

EPOV

We had sent Bella home for a little while we tried to figure out a new costume theme. We were sitting around the dining room table, all of us thinking. Well, almost all of us. I was scanning through people's thoughts and sorting their ideas, trying to think of different costumes we could make from each theme. Jasper kept getting sidetracked, however. But, it was because of one of Jasper's silly daydreams that we found the next theme.

Jasper had apparently gone to his "happy place" even though he seemed perfectly happy in the real world. And in his happy place there was nothing but sunshine. Everyone was a unicorn and they were all happily munching on the rainbows that didn't seem to have any real end or beginning. But the strange thing was that all the unicorns were pooping butterflies.

I shuddered but decided to suggest the idea anyway. "Jasper's bizarre daydream just gave me an idea."

"Was it the one with the unicorns that eat rainbows and poop butterflies," Alice asked. I nodded and she sighed. "I told him he had to stop imagining that place!"

"Anyway, what if we do a magic theme? We could have witches, genies, and things like that!"

"What about if we do Gods? Like the Greeks or the Egyptians? Isn't there a myth about a beautiful Goddess of Love," Rosalie batted her eyelashes and tried to look as goddess-like as possible, "Who's in love with the handsome God of War?" Emmett began "pumping his guns" and trying to look god-like.

"Great," Jasper exclaimed, jumping up into the air. "And I can be a centaur!"

We all just looked at him but for once he was sticking to his idea and refusing to let anyone influence him. Eventually we just shrugged and gave in, all except Alice, of course. She made a face and grumbled something about having a smaller, cousin of the horse for a husband. This then caused Jasper to spend five minutes explaining the differences between a donkey and a centaur.

And so, that began another magical adventure. Within minutes the girls had come up with costume sketches and sent us off to buy all the supplies. Fabric, glitter paint, and some plastic accessories. Meanwhile the girls would start making measurements and finding patterns. Perhaps it should have occurred to me to warn Bella before Alice got to her. It would have saved us a lot of trouble.

BPOV

I was asleep. I was happy. There was nothing that could have possibly gone wrong. Of course I should have known how wrong all this was. I had been trying to vampire-proof my windows. Not that it helped anything. I was fast asleep, exhausted from the adventures of the past few days and slept soundly even through things that usually would wake me up. For instance, the sound of my window being forced open or the sound of glass breaking when someone couldn't get the window open. Or even the sound of Alice wriggling through my window and knocking everything fragile or noisy off of my nightstand.

But I just slept through all of that. Oddly enough, there was something that woke me, but it wasn't loud at all. It was the soft, vampire-level "oof" that Alice made as she shimmied her way through the hole in my window and landed on my floor. That's when I bolted upright and began to scan my room for the intruder. I spotted something medium sized and white lying on my floor. I didn't have time to think, I grabbed my baseball bat, that Charlie insisted I keep next to my bed to fend off attackers, aka Edward, and swung for all I was worth.

There was a satisfying _thwack_ but also a familiar, perky voice that started to say "Hi Bella" before I so rudely cut it off. Perhaps I should be a little less cautious. After all, I was friends with a family of vampires. I should always be expecting one or more of them to break into my house at some point during the day. I should be grateful they choose to do it while I'm here and occasionally give me a warning.

"Wait a minute," I said aloud, "If that was Alice, how is this bat still in one piece?" As if on cue the bat shattered into a million little pieces that were promptly sucked out the hole in the window in a random gust of wind that appeared and disappeared suddenly.

I shrugged and went back to sleep, it was too late for this. I crawled back into bed and fell asleep almost immediately. Of course I wasn't asleep for long. Pretty soon I heard someone trying to break in again. So I grabbed my trusty crowbar from under my pillow and swung again. Alice went flying. Again. I hit her just as she said "What was that about?" I stopped to examine my crowbar, which was now dented. I looked closely at the dent and discovered that it was an imprint of Alice's angry face. I laughed and carefully put the crowbar on my desk, next to my closet so that Alice could snarl angrily at my outfits without even having to leave her house.

Then Alice appeared in room for a third time and she was very angry. "Bella! What was that about?!"

"What do you mean? _You_ broke into _my_ house!"

"Alright, just for that, you're costume is going up a notch on the slutty scale!"

"No," I screamed, "Not that! Anything but that!"

EPOV

We were almost finished shopping when Jasper shuddered and suddenly we all became very, very afraid.

"Jasper," I whispered in a high, squeaky voice. "What was that?"

"I just felt a great wave of fear coming from someone. Like when you mix a nice dress with ratty sneakers and call it fashion."

Carlisle had been backing away from what he assumed to be the source of the fear and accidentally bumped into a shelf, knocking a few things harmlessly to the floor. Emmett threw the bolts of fabric he had been carrying into, screamed in a high voice for a full minute and then collapsed on the floor.

We heard a _thunk_ as the bolts landed on the head of a small employee who had been helping us. I didn't catch a good look at his face at first because he quickly crashed to the ground, but there was something familiar about the back of his head. I flipped him over and discovered that it was none other than Newton. And apparently he didn't handle fear well; there was a large, wet spot on his pants that covered his crotch.

"I didn't know Newton worked here," I said, pushing Jasper's fear out of my mind. Carlisle shrugged and picked up the things Emmett had dropped. I grabbed Emmett's feet and began dragging him along towards the register followed by a still-nervous Jasper. We got many suspicious looks as I dragged Emmett down the aisles, especially because when he fell he landed on a bottle of red paint and there was now a trail of it leading through the store. But the suspicious glances reached a new height when I looked around sneakily and then dumped Emmett into one of the giant display boxes that were arranged too look like presents.

Carlisle lifted the lid and peeked inside, shaking his head sadly. "So much blood," he mumbled before walking off with me and purchasing everything.

EmPOV

I knew what was going on, and I knew that Edward would leave without me. But I didn't mind because I had something fun in mind. I waited patiently until I heard someone vulnerable sounding passing by my hiding spot. How did I know they sounded vulnerable? Well let's just say they have a very familiar whining voice.

I jumped out of the box with my scariest face and roared as the person passed by. Newton screamed again and the spot on his pants got a little darker and a little bigger. And then he passed out again. Ah the joys of scaring Newton. I laughed and climbed out of the box, running off just as I heard security rounding the corner. Just as I ran out of the store I heard Newton's boss yelling at him.

"Sleeping on the job, eh? And bladder problems? You're setting a bad example, Newton! We can't have you representing the store, you're fired!"

I laughed; somehow I didn't think this was the first time Newton's crazy antics had gotten him fired. Silly Newton, when would he learn?

EPOV

On the way home Carlisle apparently decided to share some old memories from when we had just turned into vampires.

"You guys were all so little then," he said in cooing voice.

"Carlisle, we haven't aged!"

"Yes but you were like little kids. So cute and innocent!"

"I'd hardly call someone who kills on a regular basis innocent."

"Esme and I were so proud when you each made your first kill. I know we shouldn't have promoted feeding on humans but once you first chance you needed a human to survive. And what we were doing with Emmett really reminded me of that. It's been so long since I've had to drag the bodies of innocents through the streets or scatter the bodies of animals throughout the country to try and hide the fact that you almost upset an entire ecosystem while trying to boycott animal blood."

"What are you talking about," Jasper asked from the backseat. "Just last week you were helping me hide that slut I mauled."

"Oh that's okay, Jasper," Carlisle said calmly, "She deserved it."

I just stared at my father for a minute. And while I was staring at him I wasn't paying attention to the road and started to drift into another lane. I realized this and swerved back into our lane, I looked over to see who I had hit and snickered. "Hit Newton," I called out.

"I'm on it," Jasper yelled, creating a moon roof in the car. Carlisle jumped out of his seat and looked through the newly created hole in the top of the car. Jasper had run across the highway to catch Newton's car, flung open the door, tearing it clean off its hinges, and punched Newton in the face, hitting him flat against the window. Then he ran back across the highway, still holding the door, and jumped in the moon roof.

"DRIVE, DRIVE, DRIVE!"

So we sped off towards home, completely avoiding all the cop cars and Newton's crazy accusations that we're out to get him. We'll just make him think it was a Yeti. Poor Yeti, for years he's been taking the blame for all our crazy antics.

RPOV

I didn't know what had happened but I was excited when Alice called and told us to crank up the smuttiness on Bella's genie outfit. Originally we were planning to do something relatively conservative, have a somewhat sheer piece of fabric covering her stomach and even let her shirt sit on her shoulders. But now, we were going to throw conservative out the window!

We didn't have all the right measurements for Bella; each costume needed to hang on her differently and needed to fit different parts of her body so it was important that we take different measurements each time. Plus, it annoyed Bella. But without the real Bella things just didn't seem as much fun.

"Esme, do you feel like something's missing?"

"Yes," Esme said sadly, "It's just not the same without Bella here."

We thought for a moment and then smiles grew on both our faces. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Esme?"

"I think I am, Rosalie."

"Its play time," we yelled in unison. We rushed around and grabbed some pictures Alice had taken of Bella; most of them were angry or annoyed so we had plenty to choose from. We grabbed the dullest, most conservative clothes we could find and threw them on the manikin. We dug around for a while and found a brown wig in Jasper's closet, although I could have sworn he had blonde, black and red haired wigs in his closet, too. And soon we had our very own Bella replacement. Except she was much quieter and a lot less clumsy than the real Bella.

But we had a plan to fix that, as well. Using the big projector we managed to get the videos of Bella's greatest trips, falls, and blunders. Soon the air was filled with the screams of a very klutzy Bella falling down stairs and tripping into snow drifts and puddles. And each time we finished a costume we held it up to Bella and one of us would click on Bella's complaint tape.

Finally we had all the costumes for the girls. And miraculously nothing had gone wrong so far. Of course that peace couldn't last forever. Just as we finished the guys came bursting in, all talking at once. But once we actually stopped to listen to them we realized they weren't really talking and were all just saying "blah, blah, blah" over and over again. Well they stopped in front of the outfits we had made and pretended to critique them.

"I think it needs more-"

"Definitely could use some-"

"You're right. Now what if we just-"

"No."

"Yeah, I think that would be too much of the-"

"Yep."

"Shall we?"

"Let's shall!"

They rushed out of the room and came back wearing skin-tight leather pants and button-down shirts that were unbuttoned from the middle of their chests up. They had measuring tapes draped around their necks and had pin cushions on little bracelets around their wrists. Carlisle clapped his hands and a giant box appeared in Edward's arms. And then, without another word they started grabbing things from the box and began throwing them about the room, mostly on the costumes, a little was thrown onto us, as well.

When they were finished it looked like a clown had exploded all over our outfits. Esme's dress was covered in neon pink feathers, Alice's was covered in sticky pieces of confetti we later learned were just pieces of poster board covered in glue, Bella's seemed to have absorbed the brunt of the attack, hers dripped with fringe, tassels, feathers and the confetti. Mine seemed relatively unharmed but, like everything else, it was coated in two thick layers of glitter. One layer was rainbow and the other was silver. We turned to stare at the guys only to find that they had disappeared, leaving behind their measuring tapes and pin cushions.

"Well this is a disaster," Alice said, appearing in the doorway.

"Oh it will be alright," Esme said. "We'll just throw them in the washing machine and everything will be okay."

So we gathered up the outfits and threw them in the washing machine. Or at least, we tried to. We had to unwrap the washing machine first and remove the plastic blocker from the inside of the machine. But finally we got the clothes inside. And then we ran into another problem. We needed to use soap, but how much? And what kind? Well, when in doubt, use everything.

EsPOV

I tried to tell the girls that there were instructions on the back of the detergent packages but they wouldn't listen to me. Instead they just kept scooping in powdered detergent and poured several caps of liquid detergent in. But then they didn't think that would be enough. So while Alice poured in several boxes of soap, Rosalie poured the contents of three bottles.

I decided that now would be a good time to leave.

EPOV

After we "decorated" the girls' costumes we decided it would be a good idea to leave the house for a while. We all rushed into the car but quickly realized we had no where to go. So we drove around in circles for a while.

"I'm _bored_," Jasper announced from the backseat. Then he suddenly started snickering and then I started having trouble paying attention to the road. And Carlisle seemed to have trouble staying in his seat, though he looked like he desperately wanted to resist.

"I don't know what's going on," he said in a shaky, almost irresistible voice, "But, I feel like I can really relate to you, Edward." He put his hand on my knee and suddenly I punched Jasper.

Carlisle snapped back into his seat while Emmett roared with laughter.

"That's not funny! And that's the third time you've done that today! You really need to stop."

"I'm still bored," Jasper grumbled. "Hey, I know! Let's rob a liquor store!"

We all just stared at him. I decided to pull into the toy store. There was nothing that could go wrong in a toy store surrounded by soft plush toys, right?

_Right?_

JPOV

Oh boy, toy store! I went running inside as soon as Edward stopped the car.

EPOV

Jasper was out of the car as soon as we even got close to the toy store. I was still driving but he didn't care, he shot out of the car and was off running down the street like the crazy person he was.

As he ran he shouted, "Its pony day! Pony day! Pony day! PO-NY DAY!"

We chose to ignore him. But it became harder and harder to ignore him when we got into the store. We could tell where he had been because there was a trail of wreckage through the store. And then we noticed something strange. The store was deserted, and Emmett was missing. Then, suddenly, old western music rang through the air. Jasper appeared wearing what looked to be the clothes he had been wearing when he first met Alice and joined our family. He had a cowboy hat and boots, a button-down shirt and a little star sheriff's badge. And the strangest thing of all was that he had managed to find a pony. Or, more accurately, a pony stick. It was one of those cheap toys that parents always bought for their kids. Basically it was nothing more than a broom turned upside down and covered with a cloth sack shaped to look like a pony's head.

Emmett wasn't much different. Except he was riding on a child-sized pony doll and had a holster with fake guns around his hips and a cow print vest. He looked ridiculous, especially while he was staring Jasper down. Nothing happened for a minute and then they both yelled "DRAW!" and pulled their weapons. At first they shot little foam darts at each other. But then they both ran out of ammo, so they chucked them and then grabbed a new weapon. This one just shot silly string everywhere. So rather than fight each other, they thought it would be fun to "gallop" over to me and cover me in blue and green silly string. I was not amused. Everyone else was.

When those ran out they just threw them at my head, I dodged but apparently someone else wasn't as lucky. I turned around to see a man with a "Manager" nametag pinned to his vest and another person collapsed on the floor with a big "Newbie in Training" tag. I walked over to see if he was okay and recognized the familiar face of Newton. Apparently after we got him fired from the craft store, he came to the toy store and we gave him a concussion. I laughed and almost felt bad for poor Newton. Everywhere he went, he managed to get him into trouble with us. I almost felt bad, but I didn't. Frankly, he deserved it.

When I turned back Carlisle had disappeared with Jasper and Emmett was trying to shoot bubbles at me from his brand new bubble-gun. "Where's Jasper?" I tried to talk to Emmett but he just kept shooting bubbles into my mouth. I sputtered and he laughed.

"I don't know, they said something about a coconut and ran outside."

I really should have been surprised, or at the very least a little worried, but somehow, this just seemed like normal activity. I grabbed Emmett and rushed outside, shouting our apologies and throwing the standard Cullen Apology Letter onto the counter. Outside we discovered that Jasper had done a full 360 and changed costumes, and eras. Now Jasper was dressed in white and gold and looked like King Arthur, complete with crown and sword. Next to him was Carlisle dressed in brown rags with a rag over his head. He was slightly hunched under a large rucksack and several chests and boxes. In his hands he held two coconut halves.

"Isn't that heavy," I asked, indicating the rucksack.

"Nope," Carlisle said, straightening up, "It's completely empty." He grinned and slouched over again.

Jasper banged the end of his broom-horse on the ground to get our attention. "I am Arthur, King of the Britains. And this is my noble servant, Patsy!"

"You've got to kidding me."

"Indeed we are not," Emmett said, always eager to join in on the fun. "Now, come Patsy the Second!" Emmett had changed into an outfit similar to Jasper's except in different colors and without the crown. "I am Sir Robin the Brave!"

I glared at all of them. They smiled stupidly at me, as if that would somehow miraculously change my mind. It didn't. Not that it really mattered. Within seconds I found myself wearing Patsy's uniform with two coconut shells in my hands.

"Now are you going to be a good Patsy and come along or are you going to mope," Emmett asked.

"Mope," I answered simply.

"Have it your way then," Jasper said. Within seconds I discovered that I was tied to Emmett so that whenever he moved I had no choice but to move as well. Emmett took a few experimental steps and seemed satisfied to discover that whenever he stepped forward, no "stepped" isn't the right word; "galloped" is more accurate. Well, whenever he galloped forward my hands would slam together in a specific manner and the coconuts sounded like horses clopping down a street.

And so, with Jasper and Emmett leading the way on their broom horses and Carlisle and I following behind them, making horse sounds, we ran through town, towards the distant sunset that wasn't there before and which made no sense to be here now. After all, just a few minutes earlier Bella had been asleep and it was the middle of the night. But then, it wouldn't make much sense for Newton to start job training or for any stores to be open in the middle of the night. But couldn't be morning already, we'd be at school.

"Hey guys, have any of you noticed-"

"Quiet, Edward! You'll shatter the last bit of sanity this story has!"

"What story?"

"I said QUIET!"

APOV

Esme had disappeared all of a sudden after we put the clothes in the laundry. It was almost like she knew something we didn't. Rosalie and I were upstairs working on the guys' costumes. I didn't even try to work on Jasper's costume, if he wanted to make a full body for himself then he could but I wasn't going to bother with it. So instead, Rosalie and I started and finished Carlisle's, Emmett's and Edward's costumes.

And when we heard the washing machine ding we ran downstairs to get the costumes, after all, we only had a few hours until school. At least, I think we only had a few hours; it was rather hard to tell because the color of the sky seemed to change every two minutes. But before we even reached the bottom of the stairs we knew something was wrong, namely, there was soap everywhere. We both slipped on the stairs and went sliding into the suds. Well, I did. Rosalie grabbed the banister and managed not to be buried in soap. It's just a good thing that I don't need to breathe; otherwise I'd be in trouble.

"Oh my gosh," Rosalie said, "I think we added a bit too much soap."

"You think?" Esme was kneeling on the kitchen table with the garden hose in her hands. "Hang on for just a second and I'll wash away all the bubbles."

"No, wait!" Rosalie yelled. "The guys will be getting home soon and we can scare them!"

"Oh," Esme said, looking excited. "I like that, let's do that!"

And so they crouched in the shadows while I sat in the foam and waited for our vict-I mean, husbands, to arrive. And shortly we heard the sound of horses and Rosalie spotted the guys galloping up the driveway with fake horses and coconuts. She also reported that Edward appeared to be in chains with duct tape over his mouth. At any rate they came up the driveway and opened the door.

As soon as they did I jumped out of the soap and screamed, "ROAR!"

They all screamed like little human girls and Emmett ran away screaming in fear. "Brave Sir Robin ran away," Edward mused as Carlisle, out of nowhere, grabbed a lead pipe and swung it at my head. I went flying against the washing machine and sank to the floor.

"What is it with people and hitting me in the head," I asked angrily before getting up and storming away.

EsPOV

I looked at the hose in my hands and checked the different settings. It was a strange hose to say the least. There were the usual settings, mist, weak, strong, and then there were different settings depending on what you were spraying. Soap, flowers, siding, people. I turned the hose on soap as Alice was storming away. I know she was angry that I was spraying her but I didn't want soapy footprints though my entire house. While I was at it I gave the guys a good wash, too. They were covered with bad ideas and silly costumes. But that's nothing this hose can't get rid of! Especially if I set it to people. Of course they were blown out of the house and most of the carpet and wallpaper were peeled away but the house was free of soap suds. And oddly enough, all of this was happening while Bella was still asleep at home, which was unusual to say the least.

Usually by now Bella had tripped over just about everything in the house, complained and blushed for hours about her new costume and usually something was broken or on fire. Sometimes both. The house just wasn't the same without Bella in it. I sighed, I really missed her sometimes. I know it was illogical and that I should really value the welfare of my home and family more but there was a certain sense of life and destruction that Bella brought to our family.

"Hey Esme, I think we have a little problem with the clothes."

Of course, we could create plenty of mayhem by ourselves. I dropped the hose and hopped off the table. Rosalie had already loaded the laundry out of the washer and thrown them into the dyer on super-high. I bent down and started to pull the clothes from the dyer piece by piece; then I realized what the problem was. Everything had shrunk. I held Bella's tube top up in front of my face.

"I don't think this'll fit Bella anymore," I said, pulling the tiny slip of fabric in an attempt to stretch it. It looked like it could barely fit around my head, much less someone's torso. I pulled out the other outfits and discovered they had met the same fate. And yet, when Rosalie tried on her costume she liked it even more than she had originally. When Alice finally came downstairs her costume fit perfectly, apparently it had been too big to begin with. My costume, miraculously, remained unshrunk. But there were more things inside the dryer. Several bath towels had shrunk to hand towel size, one of Alice's dresses had become a tunic and not even underwear was spared. I pulled a pair of panties out of the back of the dyer. "Oh, look at how tiny these have become."

"Actually Esme," Rosalie said, "That's their real size. It's a thong."

I made a face and turned to Rosalie. "Is this yours?" She shook her head and mumbled something about not having green-and-purple polka dotted underwear. "Alice?" Alice made a face and shook her head, though she admitted they looked familiar. "They wouldn't be Bella's," I said. "So whose could they be?"

"Oh you washed my underwear for me," a familiar voice said. We all turned to see Jasper smiling broadly at us, now back in normal clothes. He took the thong from Esme and turned to head upstairs. "These pants are really uncomfortable when you wear them without underwear," he called over his shoulder, as if this information would help us in the future somehow. We shuddered collectively and Esme shut the door to the dyer, preventing any more of Jasper's strange outfits from escaping.

We turned back to the problem at hand. "Well, we need to find a way to stretch out Bella's costume in a very short amount of time. Ideas?"

We all knew what we would have to do, but Rosalie was reluctant and determined to find a different way. "Do we really have to do this? You know how he embarrasses me time and time again and I know this time will be more of the same."

"I'm sorry Rosalie, but do you see any alternative? There's just no other way."

"Oh Emmett," Alice called. "Could you come down here for a minute?" Emmett appeared at the bottom of the stairs, shirtless, with a grin a mile wide that radiated anticipation. Rosalie groaned.

EPOV

Alice was giving me a mental grocery list and was telling me to pick up Bella on my way back from the store, something about her costume needing some more alterations. So I grabbed Carlisle, who had already finished his costume, and Jasper, who needed to pick up some supplies for his costume at the store, and headed downstairs. I stopped short when I saw what Emmett was wearing; it's not that I was surprised at what he was wearing, more that I was surprised at how it looked on him. It really accentuated his thighs.

RPOV

One good thing I'll say about my husband, he's got gorgeous thighs.

EmPOV

Oh yeah, they all love my thighs, and who wouldn't? They're hot.

EPOV

As I stared at Emmett's strangely attractive legs a thought occurred to me. It occurred to Emmett at the exact same moment and we made eye contact just before _it_ happened.

EsPOV

Edward and Emmett were acting in the strange manner I usually reserved for Jasper. And yet, oddly enough, Jasper seemed just as confused as the rest of us. In perfect unison Emmett and Edward vibrated back and forth in a very obvious manner, complete with _boing-oing-oing-oing-oing_ sound effects. Then they turned to each other.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking, E1?"

"I think I am, E2!"

They grinned widely and shouted, "It's trick time," in unison. Then they wound themselves up dramatically and sprinted out the door, leaving the rest of us staring after them and wondering what on earth "trick time" entailed. One could only hope it would bring Bella back to us in a nice, legal manner. I always hated having to move because the boys got bored and did something stupid and illegal. After all, that's why we were never allowed in Idaho. All those poor ducks . . .

EPOV

"Alright Emmett," I said as soon as we were at the grocery store. "You get the yarn and the tape; I'll get the marshmallows, plastic tubing and bottles of compressed air!" We ran off in opposite directions and then reappeared a second later in front of the registers. At this strange hour of the night, or day depending on how you chose to judge time, there was only one register open. And it just so happened that our very best friend was working the registers at his new job.

"Hey Newton," Emmett said, sashaying down the little aisle and dumping he yarn and tape onto the conveyor belt. "Got a new job already?"

"Emmett? What on earth are you wearing?"

"You like it, _Mikey_," I said, "It's all the rage for men in Paris."

"Cullen? What are you talking about?"

"Oh don't be coy Newton," Emmett purred, leaning over the belt and placing his face a few inches from Newton's. "I know you've wanted me ever since that day in the dressing room." Newton was trying to back away but his register had a little door on the back of it, conveniently preventing escape. "And now there's no one else around, so you don't have to be shy. Edward will help you, if you'd like."

As soon as Emmett said this I grasped my t-shirt and pulled it apart, cleaving the front of it in half and revealing my smooth, white chest. Newton scrambled farther away. "Don't worry Mikey," I said, climbing up onto the conveyor belt, "We know how you must feel, and it's perfectly natural. We don't mind at all."

By now Emmett was kneeling on the conveyor belt, right next to the scanner scale and was trying desperately to suppress a grin. "So Newton, you want to feel my guns," he flexed dramatically and suddenly the poor strip of fabric that had been Bella's tube top snapped and went flying. And, as luck would have it, it flew right into Newton's eye.

"My eye," he yelled, clutching his face and toppling over the little door behind him. Newton lay squirming on the floor for a minute before a voice sounded over the intercom.

"Hurt yourself the first day on the job? Well we can't have that, Mr. Newton, you're fired." Newton sobbed pathetically and we snickered to ourselves. I pulled an eye patch out of my pocket and dropped it onto Newton's chest.

"You might need that," I said.

Emmett laughed and shot himself across the scanner and down into the bagging area. Strangely enough as he passed over the scanner it beeped, we both turned to check the screen. It rang up as S EX Y. I had no idea what the letters stood for but we were both dumbfounded. I tried passing over the scanner but all it had to say was REJECTED. Emmett laughed, I scowled.

I climbed off the register completely and put my shirt back together. "Those pre-rip panels Alice installed are working nicely," Emmett commented. Alice had gotten tired of mending all of our shirts every time we ripped them open so she simply installed pre-rip panels. Bella had pointed out that they could also be called "Velcro" but Alice insisted that pre-rip panels sounded fancier, which it did.

Emmett and I grabbed our things off the belt and left some money next to the register before running off, leaving Newton lying on the floor, not that we really cared. We had more important things to do, namely, vandalize the inside of Bella's house. Well, maybe "vandalize" is too strong of a word.

BPOV

"You've vandalized my house!"

EPOV

Alright, maybe it was the right word to use after all.

"Now Bella, please try to understand."

"What's to understand? You strung up red yarn everywhere so that I have no choice but to maneuver through it like some sort of spy!"

"Your point being," Emmett asked.

"I'm not a spy," Bella shrieked. "I'm a klutz!"

"Oh yeah," Emmett said, as if this was some long-lost memory that he had just remembered. Bella just stared him with a disbelieving look on her face.

"Well, in any case, we'd like you to come back with us, Bella. Esme misses you terribly and the house, however peaceful, is just not the same without you there."

"Oh Edward," Bella said, placing her hand on my cheek, "Some of that was incredibly sweet. Of course I'll come back with you, just as soon as I find a way to get out of the house."

"Allow me," I said, I pulled her onto my back and she settled into place. "You better hold on tight spider monkey."

"Spider monkey?"

I shrugged. "I heard someone say it somewhere."

"Well that's a pretty stupid thing to say. Honestly, spider monkey? What were they thinking?"

"Clearly they weren't." Bella laughed and wrapped her arms around my neck as I began to slide through the yarn, avoiding them as if they were real lasers that could hurt me. I flipped over, crawled under, and even did a little bit of limbo and finally, after about five minutes, I made it through the house. I was very thankful for my vampire reflexes on the stairs or else I surely would have fallen and crushed Bella.

Finally, though, the three of us made it back outside and climbed into my Volvo and headed towards home. But on our way there I caught a glimpse of something Alice was planning, a little revenge of Bella for having hit her in the head twice, a fact that made me chuckle, and then not visited our family for the entire day. And now that I knew about this little scheme could I simply sit back and ignore it? I think not.

"Bella love, are you in the mood for some pie?"

"Pie," she asked incredulously. "Edward what are you talking ab-" Then she noticed me winking and grinning evilly. "You know what? I think some pie would be great right about now. Yeah, let's get some pie."

Of course Emmett had no idea what we were talking about, but that still didn't stop him from pointing out the nearest bakery. "There it is," he yelled, slapping me repeatedly in the side of the head until I finally pulled into the parking lot. Emmett kept bouncing excitedly in the back seat and was causing the car to rock back and forth. Bella quickly rushed out and I followed her. Emmett was having trouble working the door handle in his excited state so he simply punched the glass out of the window and crawled out that way.

Of course this seemingly simple action would have to cause trouble for someone. And who better than everyone's favorite person, Mike Newton. When Emmett punched the glass he accidentally hit Newton in the side of the face as he was staggering towards the payphone to call for a ride to the doctor's office. He went down hard and fast and when I looked at him I noticed a large purple bruise already forming over his good eye. And of course he had been showered in little pieces of glass and had a handful of shallow cuts all over his body.

I sighed and dragged him over to the curb, pulling out my cell phone with one hand and dragging Newton by the collar with the other hand. "Hey Carlisle," I said. "Yeah, Newton again. No, Emmett accidentally punched him so he won't be driving over there. By the bakery, don't worry; we'll be gone by the time they get here. Yep, we're bringing Bella home with us. Goodbye."

Meanwhile Emmett had run inside and was pressing his nose up against the glass display case. Ooh-ing and Ahh-ing over all the fancy cakes and pies. Bella was acting more mature and was talking to the guy behind the counter. She ordered the biggest, creamiest pie they had and grinned evilly. I think the guy working there realized that it was going to be thrown at someone so he offered to write "SURPRISE" in icing and put it in the box so that it would be easy to take out at a moment's notice.

We peeled Emmett off the display case and dragged him back out to the car. It was show time!

APOV

This was going to be great. Bella hadn't visited us at all and we had all missed the insanity she usually caused. But now Edward and Emmett were bringing her home, so I figured I would kick start the craziness with a little surprise gift. I heard Edward's Volvo zoom up towards the house and I got ready to go. I waited until they came up the steps and opened the door before I jumped out and screamed, "Surprise! Vamp-in-a-box!"

"Ahhh!"

_QUISH!_

"That's it! Strike three! You hit me with a baseball bat, then you hit me with a crowbar and now you hit me with a pie! That's it, now you are not going to see your costume, at all! By the time you lay eyes on it it'll be way too late to change anything."

Bella's mouth hung open in shock and she sank to her knees. Putting her hands up in front of her face she tried to plead with me, "No, Alice, no, please don't! It wasn't my idea! It was Edward's, I didn't know what was going to happen, I swear! Don't punish me like this, please!"

But there was no way I was going to listen to her.

BPOV

It's not my fault! Alice can't do this to me! I didn't know that Alice was going to jump out of a box and scare me! All I knew was that something was going to happen and that I should have a pie handy. How could Alice do this to me? No . . . wait a minute, Alice wasn't to blame. Edward was. This means that he was entirely to blame when Alice threw me into some extremely slutty outfit. And I knew she would do it, Alice never passed up an opportunity to embarrass me and now that I couldn't possibly protest, this was going to be terrible.

I turned around slowly to glare at Edward, who had the bad sense to still be standing behind me. Edward was still laughing but slowly stopped as my glare cut through his joy.

"Bella, love, did you see the look on Alice's face? It was priceless! So funny, wasn't it funny, love? It was just so . . . and she was . . . covered in . . . pie . . ." by now Edward had stopped laughing all together and was smiling at me guiltily, as if suddenly following my train of thought. He gave me one last wide smile before disappearing. I turned my glare to Emmett who smiled enthusiastically before disappearing and then reappearing a moment later holding Edward in an iron grip. Edward smiled weakly. "I love you?"

"You're not going to get out of this that easily! And I've got just the punishment for you!"

"Rum," Esme asked excitedly, appearing at my side with a bottle of rum in her hands. I was a bit alarmed at how quickly Esme had procured alcohol and mixing my luck with alcohol, even if I wasn't drinking it, just seemed like a bad idea.

"Sorry, Esme, not today. But I tell you what; maybe this weekend we can make a batch of jell-o shots for people who can legally drink."

"Oh, okay then," Esme said, walking away disappointedly.

She disappeared into the kitchen where we all heard Emmett yell, "Hey, rum!"

I turned my attention back to Edward and smiled evilly.

EPOV

I hate children's parties. I really do, I have nothing against children in general but when you throw thirty of them together into someone's backyard, pump them full of cake, candy and soda and then they demand entertainment, that's when they turn into devil spawn.

"And now, kids, I want everyone to welcome, Popito, the happiest cat in the whole wide world!"

I sighed and fastened my giant sombrero to my giant brown, happy kitty face. The sombrero was bright orange with green and red squiggle lines on it. And that was just the hat. I was also being forced to wear a red, orange, yellow and green striped jacket with a white button-down shirt, black bow tie. And then there were the pants. Oh God, the pants were horrifying. I couldn't believe my eyes, they were just terrible!

"Hey kids," I said, trying to sound as enthusiastic as possible. "Yo soy Señor Popito, the happiest kitty in the whole wide mundo!"

BPOV

Finally it was time for the costume contest. Unfortunately I wasn't allowed into the girl's locker room and I wasn't even allowed to see Edward. So I spent my time roaming the halls aimlessly and trying to spy on either Alice or Edward. As I was roaming the halls I noticed a large painting that seemed to have randomly appeared outside the boy's locker room. It depicted a guy, who looked to be about our age, wearing some sort of black and white Samurai outfit holding a sword to an opponent who was wearing a similar outfit but who had two eye patches on. The first guy had smooth, dark skin and hair that was cut close to his scalp. A strange air seemed to float around him and I could not help but marvel at him. The second guy, the one with the eye patches, just looked strange and clumsy.

Then the door to the boy's locker room opened and I sprinted around the corner in hopes of catching a secret glance at Edward. Of course I would have no such luck; Alice immediately saw my plan and threw a dark pillowcase over my head before dragging me away, into the gym.

EmPOV

"No, no, Jasper, you don't get it. Eros was the Greek one, Cupid is the Roman version, and he's the one everyone knows. Right, Carlisle?"

"Did somebody say 'Cupid'?"

We spun around just as there was a small smoky explosion. The smoke smelled different, but pleasing, something I recognized but hadn't smelled in a long, long time. Once the smoke cleared there was a good-looking guy standing just in front of a picture frame that appeared to be missing a person.

"Why yes," I said, "I did say 'Cupid.'"

"As in," the guy wiggled his eyebrows once or twice. I was starting to really like this guy. "The Cupid Shuffle?"

Okay, now I really, really liked this guy. He was so cool, but more than that he was . . .

I didn't have time to finish my thought because just then, seemingly out of no where, the Cupid Shuffle by Cupid started playing. The guy instantly got excited and started to dance. I whooped and then tore off my shirt, throwing it to the ground and jumping right into the dance.

"Hey, what's your name," I asked as while we walked it by ourselves.

"I'm Parker!"

"Parker, man, you rock!"

"I know!" He laughed good naturedly and we continued dancing. Carlisle and Jasper looked on curiously at first, surprised that I had finally found someone who shared my love of awesome dances. But all too soon the dance was over. We laughed and high fived.

"Parker, you should stick around. There are so many more dances we need to do!"

"Sorry, Emmett, but I can't stay here. I'm needed somewhere else, another universe, in a parallel plane of existence that is actually very close to here." He stared off into the distance, or maybe he was actually looking at that strange painting on the wall. Funny, that painting hadn't been there before, and it looked like it was missing something.

"Well, I'm going to miss-"

_BOOTAY-BOOM_!

"What was that?"

There was a large cloud of smoke and Parker was gone. I sniffed the air. "What's that smell? It's . . . it's . . . wait a minute, I've got it! It's the smell of awesome! Hey Edward, get over here, you've got to smell this smoke, it's the complete opposite of you!"

Edward appeared around the corner with a skeptic look on his face. "What's it smell like?"

"It's the smell of awesome!"

Edward scowled and stalked into the gym where Alice promptly threw a black pillowcase over his head.

"What happened to that Parker fellow," Carlisle asked a moment later.

"I think he went into the painting."

"What painting?"

The painting had suddenly vanished.

APOV

"Look just shut up, Edward. Bella can't see you or else she'll know what her costume is and she'll protest."

"I am protesting!"

"Quite, Bella."

"Alright, fine, but then why am I in a pillowcase, as well?"

I thought about this for a minute. "That's a good point. You should be wearing this as well!" I pulled out a giant sleeping bag contraption from my bag. Essentially it was just a sleeping bag but it had feet and a hood as well, but no arm holes. I had found in Japan and bought one for Jasper whenever he needed to be restrained, but it worked just as well for Edward. Especially because there was no way out from the inside and he had pillowcase over his head.

"Come on everyone, the real show is about to start!"

Esme, Jasper, Carlisle, and Emmett all filed into the room wearing the simple, normal robes that I had given them. No one noticed because many people in the audience had taken to wearing robes over they costumes before or after they went on stage. What people did notice was Edward in his caterpillar sleeping bag and Bella with a black pillowcase over her head. But even with their strange outfits, Bella and Edward couldn't hold center stage when Mike and Jessica were getting ready. Ever since their first performance the duo had been gaining popularity as the clowns of the contest.

And this week would be no different. Although it seemed strange that they chose to have a painting of two samurais fighting on the stage with them. At any rate, Jessica came out first wearing a slutty Alice in Wonderland costume. A white shirt with puff sleeves and a light blue jumper dress that sat underneath her chest in an attempt to draw attention to it. She had on thigh high socks with little red diamonds and black spades on them. She had stiletto heels and kept bending over and pretending to look lost.

And then came Newton. He had two eye patches, no doubt Emmett's handiwork, and was stumbling all over the stage in his Mad Hatter's costume. His outfit was pretty traditional, not that he'd know if it wasn't, and he was trying to keep in sync with Jessica by wishing her a very merry un-birthday. Unfortunately he was talking to a wall. Jessica stormed over and was dragging him to the front of the stage when suddenly the lights went out. Funny, Emmett was missing, too.

A large white grin appeared on the stage in a very Cheshire-Cat manner and suddenly I knew where Emmett was. I thought about stopping him but the future was so much funnier if I just let him be. And sure enough, a few seconds later the lights came back on and the whole room was filled with laughter.

Jessica's outfit had gone from slutty to whore-ish. Her skirt was now more underwear with a little ruff skirt. Her white shirt was barely there, it had been converted to a crop-top that was very low cut. Her jumper had changed into a tiny, super-tight bra of sorts. She had switched her thigh highs for a garter but kept the stilettos. Newton was another subject. He was dressed in a conservative black samurai outfit and in his hands he held what looked every bit like a real sword. I was about to take it away from him but when I saw what was going to happen, I decided it couldn't hurt to let him play around a bit.

Everyone was laughing until there was a small smoke explosion. The smell of awesome filled the gym and everyone looked expectantly towards the stage, waiting for the smoke to clear. An oddly familiar looking guy appeared on the stage dressed the same as Newton except he didn't have a sword. He didn't even have a sheath for a sword but he still put his hand at his side and acted like he was holding the hilt of a sword. And, sure enough, when he raised his arm, a sword appeared out of no where.

"It's Parker," Emmett whispered excited, bouncing around in his seat.

"Blind Samurai," Parker called in a strong voice, "Will you honor me with this duel?"

Newton couldn't form a coherent answer. Instead he just said, "But wah guh huh suh luh kuh ugga oooh E bu um, HEY!" And started swinging his sword around. While he was stammering he started to swing his sword around blindly. And in the process he accidentally swiped Jessica and cut the straps of her top and made a slit in the side of her skirt. She screamed as her clothes started to slip off her.

"Mike, you jerk!"

"What, what happened? Did I rip your clothes?"

"Yes, you pervert," Jessica yelled, storming off the stage.

"Aw man, I missed it again!"

"Insulting a maiden," Parker asked incredulously. "How dare you!" With one swing he disarmed Newton and had the edge of his blade pressed up against Newton's neck. In response Newton sobbed hysterically and fell off the stage. "Well that was dull; I hate it when the fights are too easy." And then Parker disappeared in another cloud of awesome.

The lights dimmed again and Emmett's Cheshire grin appeared one more time. But this time, when the lights came back on, he had thrown Bella and Edward onto the stage. And he hadn't bothered to take off the pillow cases or take Edward out of his strange sleeping bag contraption. And they were both stumbling around blindly.

"Edward? Edward, you'll have to help me. I think I'm on the stage but I can't see anything, Alice has this stupid bag over my head and I can't get it off!"

"Don't worry, love, I'm coming!" Edward started off in one direction and then stopped. "Uh, that is, as soon as I figure out where you are. Hold still and keep talking, love."

"Edward? Edward, I think there's a door in front of me." And sure enough a wooden door, complete with frame and no doorknob had appeared in the middle of the stage.

"I found it! I found the door," Edward yelled triumphantly.

"Great! Can you open it, there's no knob on this side."

"I can't open it, I have no hands."

"You have no hands?" Bella sounded alarmed.

"Well they're trapped in . . . whatever Alice has stuck me in. Stand back, I'm going to try and break down the door." Edward backed up a bit and slammed his body against the door, but of course he couldn't use too much strength or he would give himself away to the entire human audience. So when he hit the door it did absolutely nothing except scare Bella who screamed and stumbled backwards, right off the stage. "Bella? Love, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she yelled. "Someone broke my fall." A familiar groan sounded. "Newton? Ewww, I landed on Newton!"

"Don't worry, Bella, I'm coming to save you!" This time Edward backed up farther and charged towards what he thought was the door with as much power as a quarterback in football. But since he couldn't see he ended up tackling Mike who had been shoved away by Bella as soon as she had gotten up.

Mike groaned on the floor again while the announcer cleared his throat. "So, that was Mike and Jessica for their 'Alice in Wonderland' theme. Give them a hand everyone." One person gave a half-hearted clap. "Alright then, next up is the Cullen Family with their 'Magic Theme,' get ready everyone because here they come!"

BPOV

I suddenly found myself backstage with Alice at my side. "Alright Bella," she was whispering, "After Carlisle and Esme go out it's your turn. I just need you to go out on stage and rub the lamp."

"Wait a minute," I said, desperate to distract Alice. "What am I doing? And where's Carlisle? I only see Esme!"

Alice grinned. "Just watch."

I peered around the curtain and watched as Esme walk up the runway. She paused at the head of the stage and waved her arms. There was a small poof of smoke and a caldron appeared on stage. Esme pulled a few things out of her billowy sleeves and dropped them into the caldron. She had on a black dress with long sleeves that had an orange patch of fabric on the top. Over the orange fabric she had some sheer fabric with a spider web design on it. Her skirt was black and poofy and made of several layers of black netting.

Once all the objects with in the caldron, another smoke bomb went off and this time Carlisle was standing in front of Esme, pretending to look confused. He was wearing a loose grey tunic tied with a blue rope belt and a blue cloak. And what would a wizard be without a pointy blue hat? Well Carlisle saw Esme and he scooped her into her arms and walked her off to the side of the stage, making room for me.

I walked out as Alice told me to, and most people seemed confused because I was wearing my regular clothes. Sadly I was just as confused as they were. And I had no idea where that lamp was that Alice told me to rub. And then I found it. Or rather, I tripped over it. It was a gold lamp like in the story of Aladdin. I had no choice but to rub it and hope something good came out of it. For the record, nothing good came out of it.

I rubbed the lamp and yet another smoke bomb went off, they seemed to be popular today. When the smoke cleared Edward was standing in front of me and trying not to smile. He was dressed in a navy blue vest with gold around the edges, leaving most of his chest bare. He had blue puffy pants and gold shoes that turned up at the ends.

"I'm here, what are your other two wishes," he asked with a laugh. And then he noticed what I was wearing, he looked me up and down and pretended to be annoyed with what he saw. He folded his arms in front of his chest and blinked at me. You know, with all these smoke bombs going off you would think it would have set off the smoke alarms. Instead I found myself dressed up like a genie, and not a very conservative one at that.

I had on a tiny light blue tube top with little bubble sleeves attached and a pair of mostly-sheer light blue puffy pants. They were almost completely see-through except for a dark blue patch that thankfully covered me. I had on gold shoes that were similar to Edward's and my hair was tied up in a ponytail on the top of my head. Not wanting to leave Edward embarrassment-free I folded my arms and blinked at him. His vest suddenly disappeared and "Hott Stuff" appeared on his chest, written in whipped cream.

"One wish left," he warned before scooping me up, somehow managing not to smear the whipped cream, and depositing me on the side of the stage next to Esme and Carlisle.

Alice and Jasper came next. Jasper sauntered out first sporting a bare chest with a quiver of arrows slung over his shoulder and a bow in his hands. But it was his bottom half that had everyone mesmerized. It looked and moved exactly like a horse. It was a caramel-blonde horse that matched his hair color exactly and it had strong, powerful looking legs. If I didn't know better I would have said he had taken it right off of a real horse. I really hoped that he hadn't done this; Alice would have stopped him, right?

Jasper turned to the side and revealed Alice perched on his back. She was dressed a bit more humanly in a light pastel dress that was cut so that on the bottom there were little triangles from different skirts peeking out, each in a different color. She had some creative makeup, mostly pale pinks and iridescent colors that shimmered in the light. And of course, what was a unicorn without their majestic horn? She giggled and hugged Jasper's shoulders as he led her over to one side of the stage.

And then, finally, it was time for Emmett and Rosalie. Rosalie came out onto the stage first and it was the role she was born to play. She model walked her way down the runway and paused at the end of the stage, striking a pose that instantly set every guy's heart afire with desire and every girl's soul alight with envy. She was wearing a flowy Grecian-inspired gown that hung down in drapes from a gem in the center of the bust. The fabric of the bust was gathered there and the skirt flowed down, caressing her body and trailing endlessly over the floor. She radiated light and beauty and the air around her seemed to shimmer and sparkle.

Emmett burst out next, nothing but combat boots and cargo pants. His immense, muscled chest was streaked with blood and he had dark, wraparound shades blocking his eyes. A fake, bloodied machete was tucked into his belt loop and it swung around dangerously and he somersaulted up the stage, coming to a stop just before Rosalie and scooping her up with his hands, one placed behind her knees and one at her shoulders. He lifted her up into the air like a trophy and she turned sideways, lounging in the air and letting her skirt drape Emmett's bloody arms.

"Is that all you've got," a familiar voice called from the back of the room. "Hit it Wenqi!" Across the room powerful lights flashed on and a whole stage appeared with a giant white mass sitting in the middle.

A small, Chinese girl wearing a fitted, red Chinese dress with two slits in the sides of the skirt, walked out onto the stage, somewhat shyly. She put one hand on her hip and made a sweeping motion towards the moving white mass with the other hand, "Behold!" Wenqi then dragged a ladder out from behind the mass and started to climb up it to the top of the mass. Someone in the audience started to laugh hysterically. Wenqi glared evilly and yelled, "Shut up, Dylan!" Dylan continued to laugh, harder now than before, and Wenqi continued to wave her fist.

Then, finally, she pulled the first sheet off and revealed a young girl, only about 6 or 7, with pale blonde hair and an all pink outfit. She was bench pressing a bar with a stuffed animal at either end. But the girl herself was moving.

So Wenqi went a little farther down the ladder and pulled off another sheet. Another girl with blonde hair, who easily could have been the first girl's sister, was bench pressing the first girl. She was wearing an over-the-top sparkly outfit and was laughing somewhat hysterically. Now that part of the mass was uncovered we could see that the youngest girl was lying on a wood plank that had a bar attached so that she could be easily bench pressed.

Next Wenqi came down so that she was almost off the ladder and pulled off the third sheet. Parker was next, bench pressing both girls at the same time and looking quite proud of himself. "Oh yeah! Take that, I can bench press two girls at once! Go Betsy," the girl above him cheered, "go Fiona," the young girl at the top giggled. He was glowing with pride.

Then as a grand finale, Wenqi put the ladder away and pulled the last sheet off, revealing a strong teacher with his face set in a grimace of concentration bench pressing Parker bench pressing Betsy bench pressing Fiona bench pressing two stuffed animals.

"Ta-da!"

The crowd ohh-ed and ahh-ed and clapped enthusiastically. Wenqi disappeared around the back of the contraption and helped Fiona climb down, appearing a moment later with the girl in her arms. She set her down and helped Betsy climb down, who took her place next to Fiona. Wenqi took a spot at the end as Parker and the teacher who no one had ever seen before, lined up on the stage. Everyone joined hands and took a bow.

The announcer came on the loudspeaker again, sounding very confused. "Alright then. Well I think the . . . mysterious strangers who don't go to this school-"

"And don't live in this state," Parker interjected.

"Or live on this side of the country," Betsy added.

"Right, well, these strangers have certainly won the . . . nonexistent talent portion of this competition. But I think it's safe to say that the Cullens have won the group's portion of the costume contest, right everyone?"

The crowd cheered enthusiastically as the lights on the back stage dimmed and the people disappeared. They turned back to us and clapped happily as we took a bow and then walked off the stage. Another day down, only a few more to go.

**As a special offer to you (and added motivation to me) for every review we receive for this chapter between now and the time we finish and post the next chapter: Newton will be fired from a job. 6 reviews? 6 jobs! Have fun everyone!**


	6. BMSC Sandwich

***clears throat* I have nothing to say. This chapter, no, this story aggravates us. WE CAN'T DEAL WITH SUCH STRUCTURE! It's crushing us. So we fired Newton a bunch and we only have about three more chapters. We're not sure how much longer we can keep doing this. Anywho! I finished it, it was hard, I hope you all like it, or at least don't hate it :D **

Chapter 6: BMSC Sandwich – Bacon, Mayonnaise, Surfer Chick Sandwich

Theme: Animal

BPOV

"I'm home," I called as I walked in the front door. Charlie was sitting on the couch watching TV, as usual.

"Bella? That you? I'm surprised to see you here."

"Why's that?"

"Well you're rarely at home anymore."

"I'm sorry, Dad," I said, plopping down on the couch next to him. "I'll tell you what. Why don't you come to the costume contest tomorrow? Alice has insisted we enter each round so I haven't had much time to be at home, I'm always monitoring her and making sure that she and Rosalie don't go too over the top with their costumes."

Charlie thought about this. "I suppose Renée would want me to take a lot of pictures."

"Great, so it's decided then. But Dad, if you're coming to the show then I really should be with Alice, she's been going a bit . . . overboard with the costumes."

I turned to go right back out the door when Charlie yelled, "Wait, Bells!" I poked my head back into the living room. "Could you, ah, maybe make dinner before you go? I've missed your cooking."

I smiled, for Charlie that was about as sweet as he could get. "Sure thing, Dad."

APOV

I was leaning upside-down off the edge of the chair trying to brainstorm ideas for costumes with Rosalie.

"What a bunny?"

"Playboy or regular?"

"Playboy."

"I don't know, might be a bit early for that one."

"What about a-"

The door swung open dramatically, crashing against the wall. Thunder rumbled and lightning flashed, revealing a drenched Bella standing on our front porch. "STOP THAT MAN!"

"I'm on it," Emmett yelled, tackling a defenseless Edward who had the terrible idea to come and see who had kicked in our door this time. Emmett tackled Edward from behind and sent the two of them flying out the door, past Bella who had moved inside and was being rubbed furiously with a purple fuzzy towel by a smiling Esme. Once she was satisfied with her work Esme removed the towel. Bella's hair had frizzed to three times its normal size and twice the size of her head and Bella was covered in purple fuzz.

Emmett and Edward reappeared from the yard, neither one of them wet. "AHH! A MONSTER!"

"Idiot! It's just Bella," Rosalie yelled.

"AHH! BELLA!" Emmett seemed to find this infinitely hilarious, even after Edward slapped him, punched him, elbowed him, kneed him and locked him in the closet. The closet didn't last long. Mere seconds later Emmett reappeared with a mop on his head and a bucket hat and began hitting Edward with a broom. Needless to say everyone ignored him and we turned to Bella to see why she had caused all of this.

"Well I couldn't barge in here without having something dramatic to yell. 'Stop' something or other. And 'stop that man' was the first thing that popped into my head."

We thought about this for a moment.

"You're right. Without the yell it would take your drama level down about twenty points. Now, what was it you wanted to tell us?"

"You can't do a slutty theme for tomorrow's contest! Charlie is coming so I need to be wearing clothes."

I sighed. "Fine, have it your way. What about a lamb for you?" I looked at her skeptically. "Just a simple lamb. Nothing perverted. A white dress with fuzzy ears."

"Actually that sounds perfect. What's more innocent than a lamb? And what would Edward be?"

"The lion of course."

"And so the lion fell in love with the lamb," Bella recalled, looking lovingly at Edward who was pretending that was something he had just thought up on the spot.

"Yeah, he thought of that while he was up in Alaska and spent two weeks staring at you trying to convince you to fall in love with him so he could use that line. You should have seen him. He thought of it and then he came running home to tell us, he looked so proud. And then we all started taking bets to see what you would do when he said that to you. Everyone thought you'd reject him but . . . no, everyone was pretty sure you'd reject him. Not even I could see that you'd fall for such a sappy line."

Bella glared. "How did making fun of Edward turn into making fun of me?"

"I'm sorry, Bella," Emmett said, sneaking up behind me and wrapping his arm around her shoulders. "Would it make you feel better if we got Newton fired?"

Bella frowned. "But you're _always_ getting him fired. Why can't I do it for once?" Bella crossed her arms over her chest and stamped her foot. And that's when all the ideas clicked into place.

"That's it! Everyone, formation X!" Boxes appeared out of nowhere and everyone hopped into one, except for Emmett.

"A!"

"B!"

"C!" Bella, Carlisle and I each popped out of our boxes, throwing our arms up in the air.

"One!"

"Two!"

"Three!" Esme, Edward and Jasper popped out of their boxes, throwing their arms up and mimicking us.

"Let's wreak havoc with RO-" Emmett tore the lid off of Rosalie's box. "SA-" He sent the lid flying as if it was no more than a flying disk, sending it sailing gracefully out the window. "LIE!" He lifted Rosalie out of the box and balanced her so she was sitting in the palm of his hand with and evil grin on her face.

"Let's do this."

RPOV

It's a miracle this family got anything done whatsoever. Not just with the costume contest, with anything! It didn't always used to be this way, but something, somewhere, had changed and now we were constantly getting sidetracked. As it was Alice and Esme decided to stay home to work on the costumes, we did only have a few hours to work on them. Emmett and Jasper mysteriously disappeared after "formation X" and that left me with Carlisle, Edward, and Bella as my ever-willing Netwon-pranking squad.

And so we set off towards the mall, again. To get Newton fired, again. But this time we were going to the pet store. We rushed inside and crouched behind a large pen filled with bunny rabbits. One of them hopped over the edge of the pen and landed on Edward's head. It settled there and twitched its ears.

"Cute," Bella said. "So what's the plan?" Silence. "You do have a plan, right?"

"Well it's not that simple. In the past, every time we got Newton fired we had projectiles. At the craft store, Emmett threw the bolt of fabric and it hit Newton in the head. Then at the grocery store, Emmett's top snapped and hit Newton in the eye. And at the toy store, well I'm sure Emmett threw something at him."

"And I don't think that we can throw anything in this store at Newton without hurting it," Carlisle added.

Bella thought for a minute and then a smile grew on her face. "I think I have an idea."

BPOV

It wasn't really much of a plan. I mostly just wanted an excuse to see the puppies. They were just so cute. And Edward still had a bunny on his head. Seeing him walking around with bunny ears delighted me to no end. And he seemed, against all odds, to be attracting more animals. I looked over at him and a parrot had settled on his shoulder and a canary was perched in the middle of his chest, sitting on the folds of his button down shirt and looking quite happy to be there.

"Look, Edward, puppies! Aren't they cute?" There was a large pen filled with puppies of varying ages and breeds. One of them noticed me and rushed over to the edge of the pen and hopped up on his hind legs, smiling at me and barking a little to get my attention. As Edward walked over I scooped the puppy up into my arms and nuzzled him. He had short, soft, light brown fur and big chocolate eyes. "Oh Edward, he needs a name. What should we name him?"

Edward appeared next to me, now with a fluffy tabby cat curled around one shoulder, apparently uninterested in the parrot, the canary or the rabbit. I gave Edward a puzzled glance and looked around to see if anyone else was having the same problem. Carlisle was whistling to the birds and appeared to be teaching them a little song, Emmett was making funny faces at the fish in the tanks and Rosalie had found a long, skinny Siamese cat and had gotten her to settle in her lap. She petted the cat lovingly but didn't seem to be attracting any other animals.

The dog noticed Edward for the first time and growled at him, though it appeared that the dog was fine with the other animals, it just hated Edward. He lunged and bit Edward's arm. Of course, being a vampire, this meant nothing to Edward. "Call him Jacob," he suggested.

I tried to glare at Edward, I really did. But it was just too funny. I started to laugh, starting out quietly and then increasing in volume and hysteria until I was crumpled on the floor laughing.

I blame the lack of sleep.

EPOV

Bella had finally cracked; we all knew it was coming, none of us were sure when, though. So no one thought much of it when Bella collapsed onto the floor and wouldn't stop laughing. Meanwhile I had a bunny on my head, a cat on one shoulder and a parrot on the other, a canary on my chest, a guinea pig in my pocket, a snake on my right arm and another one on my left leg, a mouse on my foot and a dog on my arm. I was trying to resist the urge to burst into song and dance and call myself Snow White. It probably wasn't helping anything that Emmett was blasting Snow White music from around the corner.

Rosalie peeked around the corner and grinned. "Newton's coming," she whispered, darting off to hide and gathering Carlisle and Emmett to watch with her.

"What the heck is going - Cullen?"

"AAAAHHHHH," I yelled, waving my arm around just enough to get my point across but not enough to throw the puppy into the air.

"What the-"

"FLYING IGUANA TO THE FACE!" Emmett yelled, chucking a stuffed iguana toy at Newton's face. Newton screamed and hit the floor, clutching the iguana toy and trying to pry it from his face. "Attack," Emmett yelled, unleashing the forces. He pulled the stopper free from the puppy pen and hordes of tiny puppies rushed forward towards Newton. They swarmed around him, all barking happily, stumbling and tripping and began tugging on the edges of his clothes.

"It's so cute," Bella said, having recovered from her earlier hysteria.

The puppies began to climb up Newton, moving up his arms and sitting on his chest, licking his face and enjoying the new view.

"It's almost too cute," Rosalie added.

By now all the puppies had found a spot on Newton, either on his chest, on his face or on his arms and some of them were curling up into little furry balls.

"It's dangerously cute," Carlisle observed.

The barking stopped and the puppies settled in and fell asleep.

"Yup," Emmett said. "It's official."

"It's so cute it's disgusting," I said. We all nodded and walked out of the door, replacing animals as we went. Just as we were out the door we heard the manager start yelling.

"Newton! Are you sleeping on the job? And why are there puppies around everywhere? When they're all sleeping on you like that it's so cute it's disgusting! You're disgusting! You're fired!"

"Yes," we cheered, high fiving as we left the store.

APOV

After a lot of discussion, Esme and I finally agreed on costumes for everyone. We started with Esme's outfit. We sketched out the outfit, the make up and the extras and then set to work. I think Esme enjoys standing on the little pedestal and being fitted for clothes. I remember her saying that it reminded her of when she was human. Though I couldn't be sure if she was enjoying past memories or laughing at me climbing around of the circle of chairs that surrounded the pedestal.

And then, for some reason, music started playing. "To help us work," Esme assured me. And then, one by one, the chairs disappeared, and each time one disappeared, the music stopped. "Oh and Alice, one more thing," Esme said. "The floor is hot lava."

"WHAT?!"

"Have fun."

So I now found myself trying to make Esme a costume while using an ever-decreasing number of chairs and some really annoying music. By the time Edward and the others came home I was hanging from the ceiling and, of course, was wearing something silly.

BPOV

We got home from the pet shop and went to give Alice the pictures of the animals we had found. But when we opened the door there was only Esme standing on the little pedestal we used for costume fittings.

"Where's Alice," I asked.

"Vight here!" Alice said, swinging down from the ceiling wrapped in a black cloak with little points at the bottom. She spread her arms revealing a tight black dress that extended past her feet and was miraculously sticking straight into the air. "I vant to suck your vlood," Alice said in what sounded like a Transylvanian accent.

I stared at her for all of a second and half before I screamed at the top of my lungs and bolted for the stairs. "Alice is a vampire," I screamed. "Everybody run! We're all doomed!"

EPOV

Bella sounded pretty hysterical. Her voice was rising, she sounded close to tears, and I was starting to worry. When was she going to realize that we were _all_ vampires and had been that way or the past hundred or so years?

"Alice when is she-"

"Three . . . two . . . one."

"Oooooooohhhhhh!" We heard Bella say downstairs. We heard her soft footsteps on the stairs and then she poked her head back into the room. "Sorry Alice, I forgot that everyone's a vampire." She blushed. "Forgot that I knew that for a minute there."

"That's alright Bella," Alice said, dropping down from the ceiling and shuffling her way over to Bella's side since her dress was apparently too tight to move properly. "I'm sure you do that a lot." Bella glared at her. "Now I'm going to finish up Esme's costume and Rosalie will start measuring you for yours." Bella groaned and Carlisle and I knew we were in for something entertaining. Strange things always happened when the girls worked on their costumes and for once I didn't want to miss it. We sat down in an unused corner of the room and settled in to watch. We didn't have long to wait.

Bella, adamantly refusing to be measured yet again, why she never learned just to give in to my sisters I don't know, was running around the room chased by Rosalie. Clearly Rosalie could have caught her easily but she seemed to be enjoying the chase, the measuring tape streaming behind her like a thin yellow flag. And then, the door slammed open, nearly hitting Bella in the face but she, miraculously, managed to jump out of the way before it hit. And there in the doorway was Jasper, looking even stupider than usual, if that was possible.

"Look at me, I'm a surfer chick!" Out of nowhere the song "California" started to play. Jasper had somehow managed to get a full body tan in the middle of the night. And he was wearing an aqua green sarong with blue hibiscus flowers on it and a matching bikini top.

"Jasper where did you get a tan," Alice asked, glaring at her husband.

"Is that a trick question? The sun of course."

"It's the middle of the night," Alice shouted. "Plus, you're _a vampire!_"

"Oh, well then maybe I just broke into one of those spray-on tan places."

"Did you really do that?"

"No . . ." like a child he guiltily moved his hands behind his back.

"What is that?"

Jasper reluctantly held out the spray-on tan store's brochure and lock and chain. Then, from his sarong, he procured a jar of candy, a sign-in sheet, pen, a bundle of lavender-scented sheets, massage oils, a massage pillow and bath salts.

"What did you do? Rob a spa?"

"No," Jasper said as he slipped the spa's brochure into his bikini top.

Alice looked closely at Jasper and then walked over to him and poked the bikini top. The spa's lock and chain fell out. "I thought those looked a little too big. Did you really rob a spa?"

"No, and I certainly didn't get Newton fired from yet another job while I was there."

"Moron."

"Oh, well if you don't like this then you're really not going to like-"

The door burst open again, this time colliding with Bella who had been running around the room all this time. This time she couldn't avoid the door because she had leaped at that exact moment to try and avoid Rosalie who was diving at Bella in an attempt to capture her. The door smashed into Bella's face and sent her flying backwards into Rosalie's chest and sent blood spraying onto her shirt.

"Blood? I'll save you, Bella," Emmett yelled, completely ignoring the fact that he was the one who hurt her in the first place. He must have gone to the same tanning salon as Jasper because his skin was a dark bronze and he kind of looked like . . . "And because I'm Jacob, I'll do it shirtless!" And with that, he tore off his shirt and promptly began to flex, completely ignoring Bella.

"Emmett-"

"I'm not Emmett, I'm Jacob."

"Fine. Mutt-"

"Alice! I can't believe you'd mistake me for that dog. How do you not recognize _your own brother Edward?_" Emmett spun around and revealed his pale vampire-white back and a very stupid looking, frowning mask on the back of his head. But the strangest thing was that he had somehow gotten himself in an entirely different outfit onto his back. From the front his chest was bare and he was wearing jeans and sneakers. But from the back he had on a pink, frilly, layered mini-dress over a plump chest and had somehow gotten himself into a pair of white heels. At least they looked like heels; there was only the front half of the shoe. How he ever managed to wear those shoes we'll never know. "I'm Edward," he whined, "I have no abs and my brother Emmett is ten times cooler than me. Also I like to wear dresses and have secret tea parties with Jasper."

"It's true," Jasper piped up. "We do it every other Sunday on the roof!"

"Now where's my Bella?" Emmett pretended to look around and then starting groping around for Bella, which was very difficult considering he had to reach his arms around his back. Finally, though, he found her. "Come here, love," he said in a bad imitation of my voice, "Come make out with your hubby."

I scowled, Carlisle tried to not to laugh and Alice and Esme were in hysterics. At least Bella shared my disgust.

"Ewww," she whined, trying in vain to push Emmett away. "No way!"

"Edward" sighed dejectedly and spun around, changing into "Jacob" again. "Hey Bells, I heard you just rejected the leech. Wanna make out?"

I rolled my eyes, expecting Bella to say no again, but, much to my horror she agreed.

She stared at "Jacob" for a minute and then smiled. "Yeah, I think I do."

This time Alice joined me in groaning. "Ewww!"

Without closing the 6-inch distance between them or moving at all for that matter, "Jacob" and Bella started making out. They both stuck out their tongues and wiggled them around, never even getting close to touching each other.

Rosalie ran out of the room and reappeared with her camera. "I'll pay you 10 bucks if you do that again, Bella."

"Sure," Bella agreed, happily, proceeding to "make out" with "Jacob" while Rosalie snapped photo after photo from every possible angle before finally settling on a video.

"Emmett how did you get that dress on," Rosalie asked once the novelty of "Jacob" and Bella "making-out" had worn off.

"Glue and scissors," Emmett announced proudly.

"Moron," Rosalie announced definitively. "Take that off right now!" Rosalie ran up and tore the dress off Emmett's back, a terrible peeling noise coming with it and a fair amount of vampire skin. Bella screamed and ran for cover.

"Emmett's a zombie!"

Alice, still wearing her vampire costume popped out into Bella's path. "VLEH!"

Bella screamed again and started running towards the windows. "Alice is a vampire!"

Then, not meaning to scare her, Jasper shouted "Cowabunga, Dude!" from the corner where he was pretending to surf.

Bella screamed the loudest and wailed, "JASPER'S A SURFER CHICK!" A miserable sob escaped her lips before she simply collapsed. We all stared at her for a moment.

Then, "how is Jasper the scariest one?" We all shrugged.

"This is your entire fault Emmett," I said. "If you hadn't been wearing that zombie-organ t-shirt then Bella wouldn't have freaked out." I ripped the stupid shirt off of Emmett, finally revealing his back. "And what are _those_?"

"First of all, I'm not Emmett, I'm Edward. So it's Edward's fault for scaring his girlfriend. And _this_ is Edward's womanly bosom." Emmett began fondling his "chest" and looked very proud of himself. "They're water balloons filled with mayonnaise." I just stared at Emmett. Somehow, and from somewhere, he had found a white lacy bra with a little white bow in the middle. And apparently it was part of a matching set because he was also wearing matching white lace panties with "HOT 2 TROT" stenciled on it in glitter.

"Emmett, get rid of those," Esme said sternly.

"Aww," Emmett sighed. But then he got a brilliant idea because the next thing I knew Emmett screaming "YES!" and Alice was bouncing around excited.

"Yes, yes, do that. Do that!" Alice wouldn't let me see what the plan was but she assured me that it was brilliant. She did, however, let me glimpse Emmett's target and then I was running out the door after them. Alice had her camera, Emmett had taken his "chest" out of his bra, and I was already chuckling.

As we ran out the door I heard Rosalie asking what Jasper had been up to, and judging from his thoughts, it had been a very busy, and interesting, hour for Jasper. And a certain eternally-job-hunting friend of ours.

JPOV

One Hour Earlier . . .

"See Emmett, I told you the lock would be easy to steal!"

"Hey look," Emmett said, punching me in the face. "I think that's Newton." I peered down hallway and saw Newton leading a woman in a fluffy bathrobe into a room. I laughed as I noticed how tightly the woman was holding the panels of her robe and glaring at Newton. "That is Newton! What do you think, should we get him fired?"

"Yeah! But I think he's starting to catch onto our antics. We should get someone else to do it. But who?"

And that's when we walked into the waiting room and saw Jessica waiting at the counter. "Oh this is perfect," Emmett said. "I'll start tricking Jessica, you start stealing stuff."

"I'm on it," I yelled, running off back down the hallway.

EmPOV

One Hour Earlier . . .

I grabbed a robe from an empty room and made sure that Newton was busy with someone else before I headed back to the waiting room. "Alright, I'll go get it and then I'll be right back," I called over my shoulder, coming out of the empty room. "Oh Jessica, I didn't think I'd run into you here."

"Emmett? Why are _you_ at the spa?"

"Well this costume contest has been taking its toll on me. My skin is just terrible," I said, calling upon every excuse Rosalie ever used to go to the spa. "I really need to clear up my complexities."

"You mean complexion?"

"Yeah that. Speaking of hard times. Edward is really suffering. In addition to the long hours he has put in to help us make the costumes, he's fighting with Bella." Jessica's smile was a mile wide when I told her that Edward and Bella were "fighting." "You know how Bella has been wearing some really slutty outfits lately?" Jessica nodded and I continued, "Well Edward's not comfortable with it and has asked her to please cover up but she got angry and has been yelling and screaming at him ever since. He could really use someone to comfort him. He needs someone to hold him close and my body just isn't soft enough for that. All muscle, you know?" I pulled apart my robe a little bit and flexed for Jessica who completely ignored me.

"Why don't I comfort Edward?"

"That's a great idea," I said, taking Jessica by the hand and leading her down the hall. "But let's make it a surprise, okay? Why don't you wait in here," I said, opening the door to the storage closet. Inside Jasper was grabbing bottles of bath salts and massage oils. He looked over his shoulder when I opened the door before screaming a very girly scream and turning to face us.

"Don't look, I'm naked," he screamed, despite the fact that he was still completely clothed. He grabbed two teacups off of a shelf and held them over his chest. Meanwhile Jessica had started screaming and had run off down the hallway.

"My eyes! My eyes! They burn, I never wanted to see a naked surfer chick!"

Jasper and I exchanged glances and shrugged. I shut Jasper back in the closet and then led Jessica to a little empty room and told her to wait. Then I went to go get a special someone who'd love to see her.

Mike's POV

57 Minutes Earlier . . .

I can't believe Jessica is here and wants to give me a "special" surprise. I hurried into the room Emmett showed me but she wasn't there yet. All the better because now I got the chance to-

Jessica's POV

57 Minutes Earlier . . .

-get ready for him. My wonderful knight in shining armor. I looked at what I was wearing and decided that my button-down shirt was not going to work, the material was too rough. Luckily I was wearing my silk camisole underneath. So it was-

Mike's POV

57 Minutes Earlier . . .

-off with the shirt! But a hot body wouldn't be enough to draw her in, I needed something more. Something like-

Jessica's POV

57 Minutes Earlier . . .

-a cute little catchphrase. Something like-

Mike's POV

57 Minutes Earlier . . .

-"Hey Baby," or "Hey hot stuff." What sounds the best? Oh wait, the doorknob's turning, that means it's-

Jessica's POV

57 Minutes Earlier . . .

-show time! I turned around and put on my cutest face. I intertwined my fingers and tried to make my chest look as large as possible. "Why hello-"

Mike's POV

57 Minutes Earlier . . .

"-Jessica dear." I turned around, shirtless and flexing, expecting to see a misty-eyed Jessica who would rush into my arms as soon as she saw me. But instead my boss was standing in the doorway with a very shocked look on his face.

"Mike? What on earth are you doing?"

"Boss! I – no, this isn't what it looks like!" I panicked and I ran out of the room and crashed into something soft and bouncy. I stumbled backwards and looked up at one of the most beautiful women in the world. She had curly black hair and was hiding her face behind a paper fan with "HOT 2 TROT" written in elegant script across it.

"Well I never," she said in a high, squeaky voice that for some reason sounded like Emmett on helium. I don't know why, it just did.

EmPOV

57 Minutes Earlier . . .

Why they had helium in a spa I will never know. I do know, however, that it made for a very entertaining two hours.

Mike's POV

57 Minutes Earlier . . .

"Well I never," the woman squeaked from behind her fan. She reached out and slapped me with one surprisingly muscled arm. I stumbled backwards and saw my boss coming after me again. I turned to run when something smashed into my face, shattering on impact and covering me in something thick, slimy and disgusting.

"Ewww, I hate mayonnaise!" I stumbled blindly into the closest room and immediately tripped over something. Now I know how my beloved Bella feels. But thankfully something soft broke my fall. Unfortunately that something soft was also screaming and slapping me and drawing the attention of my boss. I wiped the mayonnaise out of my eyes and discovered that what had broken my fall was Jessica's chest, which was now smeared with mayonnaise.

"Mike," Jessica screamed. "What are you doing?! Get your head out of there!"

And of course that's when my boss rushed into the room. He took one look at my mayonnaise-smeared face and Jessica's mayonnaise-stained chest and started to fume. "That's it, Mike! I don't usually do this but I can't tolerate your actions. You're fired!"

EPOV

Present Time . . .

"Wait a minute," I said. "Did you have those mayonnaise boobs all along?"

"Well, yeah. I thought of the idea awhile ago but I never had a chance to actually do it."

"How old were those things?"

"Couple days old, maybe a week."

Mike's POV

2 Minutes in the Future . . .

I _really_ hate mayonnaise. At least these are rotten. I shuddered at the memory.

EmPOV

56 Minutes Earlier . . .

Once we had gotten Newton fired and completely forgotten why we had gone to the spa in the first place-

Present Time . . .

"Why did you go to the spa?"

"I don't know!"

56 Minutes Earlier . . .

-and Jasper was quite a bit . . . bulkier than before, and sweeter smelling, we set out on a new adventure. And that's when we ended up at the spray-on tan salon and found that sarong and all the clothes I used for my outfit in a bin somewhere. And then we went to surprise everyone.

Present Time . . .

We rushed down the hallways of some strange, abandoned building. "What's the plan," Edward asked as we ran.

"I don't know," I said. "I was just going to run up to Newton and throw these water balloons that are filled with mayonnaise into his face."

"You're just summarizing for the camera aren't you?"

"Yep," I yelled, running faster. Soon we burst through a brick wall, entirely for dramatic effect, and there stood Newton, wiping his face with a grimy towel and leaning against the hood of his car. Just before we were within range we saw one of the employees stick their head out of the door and tell Newton that his boss was coming out to give him a second chance. Newton ran around frantically, running his fingers through his hair and trying to make himself look as professional as possible. Too bad he didn't realize that he still had a red slap-mark across his cheek and that there was a dark mayonnaise stain on the front of his pants.

"Ready . . ."

"Mike, good you haven't left yet."

"Set . . ."

"I may have been a bit hasty in firing you. I'm willing to give you another shot but one more slip-up and you're gone for-"

"GO!" Edward and I each threw one of my mayonnaise balloons; I threw one at Newton while Edward targeted his boss. As per usual we had perfect aim. Newton's boss angrily wiped the mayonnaise out of his eyes and glared at Newton.

"Mike?"

"Yes, sir?"

"You're hired."

"WHAT," Alice, Edward and I all screamed from the bushes.

"Really," Newton said, "Thank you so-"

"You're fired!" And with that Newton's boss stormed back inside, leaving Newton shell-shocked in the parking lot. At least, he was shell-shocked until one last balloon hit him. Unfortunately, our aim wasn't as great this time and Newton's surprised scream was a high pitch that was becoming all the more normal for him since we came to town.

BPOV

By the time I woke up I was in the living room and using Edward as a pillow. I looked up at him slowly, and he appeared normal, except for the fact that he smelled like mayonnaise, but something felt off in the room. I turned my head slowly to look around the rest of the room. Everything was green and there were trees everywhere. Somewhere in the distance someone was playing a tape of rainforest sounds. I looked up into one of the trees and saw . . .

"Is that a polar bear?"

Carlisle held a finger to his lips, "Shh, I'm incognito."

"I'm a butterfly," Jasper called dreamily, somehow flying across the living room in a brightly colored butterfly outfit. He planted himself on one of the tree trunks and folded his wings up.

"Jasper what are you-"

"AAHH!" Jasper screamed and his wings popped open, revealing pictures of Alice's screaming face.

I screamed and tried to scramble behind Edward to get away from Jasper. Unfortunately Edward was in on the gag and was dressed up in what must have been his lion's outfit because immediately starting growling and roaring and chasing after Jasper who twinkled around the room complete with sound effects.

"Twinkle, twinkle," he said, accenting each skip. I sat and watched them for a bit but when Carlisle launched himself out of the tree and tackled Edward, who then challenged him for control of the "jungle" while Emmett stood on the sidelines chanting "Fight, fight," I decided things had gotten too crazy.

"That's it," I said. "I'm out of here." I got off the couch and stormed out of the room, heading up the stairs, past the girls who were busy sewing the costumes.

"Bella, do a little dance!"

"What?"

"Oh, you're awake," Alice said, clearly disappointed.

I instantly became alarmed. "What have I been doing?!"

"Well, first you kept doing the _Thriller_ dance and telling us that we were doing it wrong. Then, once you finally got fed up with our 'complete lack of dance skills,' you left and we didn't see you for a while. And then we saw you walk by in one of our old, white graduation gowns. Somehow you had gotten your hands on a big knife, we would have taken it from you but, surprisingly enough, sleep-zombie Bella is as clumsy as a vampire. So we didn't do anything even after you coated it in ketchup. And we just sat idly by and watched as you repeatedly snuck up on Edward and tried to stab him."

"And then that started to spread to Carlisle and Jasper," Esme said. "Every time you'd start trying to stab Edward they'd appear in the doorway, dressed in identical light blue frilly dresses holding hands. 'Come play with us, Eddie. Forever and ever and ever,' they would say in the same creepy monotone voices with absolutely no emotion on their faces."

"And then we went to the mall," Rosalie said, picking up a white- and pink-striped bag and dangled it from the end of her finger. "And you picked out this wonderful outfit all by yourself." She grinned evilly and suddenly I was pulled into the room and stripped of my clothes, which were thankfully replaced by a robe.

"Of course while we were there we saw Jessica," Alice said, pulling the pieces of the outfit out of the bag and squeezing me into them. "You rushed into the store but before you found your outfit you spotted her admiring herself in a mirror just inside the dressing room. She was wearing a tiny, green bikini top and cargo short-shorts with a little thong line peeking out."

"And she was going on and on about how irresistible she would look in it. I believe her exact words were, 'with this Edward won't be able to resist me and will finally dump Bella.'"

"And we couldn't let you lose to Jessica," Esme said with a sweet smile. "So we were so happy when you picked this out, and even put it on correctly and went to show Jessica. Well her jaw hit the floor as soon as she saw you. I think you won that round."

I started to reply but it was quickly cut off when Alice pulled at the ribbons of what I assumed was a corset. By the time she was finished and I was allowed to turn around I was horrified, and with good reason. I was in a tiny white dress that had a corset top with pink ribbon and some pink frills over my very-exposed chest. The bottom of the dress, which was much too short, had some matching frills and the whole dress was skin-tight. Then I had on white thigh-high stockings with little pink bows and pink heels with little ankle straps that came with bows.

I just stared at myself for a good long moment before turning bright red and began babbling incoherently. "Alice! How could you let me buy this? It's just so . . . it's too . . . too SEXY!"

"Why thank you," a familiar voice said, we all spun around, some of us with greater difficulty than others, and saw Carlisle model-posing in the doorway. He popped a few buttons on his shirt and said. "I'm glad you noticed, I think so too." And with that he sashayed down the hallway and into his office.

"What was that," I asked.

"That," Esme said, hurrying out the door, "was my husband."

EPOV

I'm really starting to get used to these random time warps. I don't even bother looking at clocks anymore, it just confuses everyone. So when suddenly everyone piled into their cars and drove off to school, I didn't question it. And then we were back in the dressing rooms, getting ready for our turn. Dylan kept peeking around the lockers in the changing room and making sure that Emmett stayed far away from him. I could tell from his thoughts that he wasn't scared; he just had no desire to be Emmett's dance partner again.

For once, though, things seemed to be going smoothly. No one tried to break into the room, no one was dancing with unsuspecting partners, and no one was screaming; it was eerie. Once we were all changed we left the locker room and went to wait for Bella, who was insisting on changing in the broom closet for some reason while Alice, Rosalie and Esme stood guard.

"Bella, why are you changing in there," I asked.

"I can't face Jessica after what happened! Who knows who she told! I can never face any of them ever again," she wailed.

"Bella love, I don't understand. What did you _do_ exactly," I asked.

"Oh Edward, you should have seen it," Alice gushed. "She looked so . . . so . . ."

"Sexy," Rosalie suggested. And then everything went very quiet. The girls all turned to Carlisle; even Bella stuck her head out of the door to stare at him.

"What," he asked, pretending to look innocent. "I am!"

I just stared at him and then backed away slowly. Luckily for us, the costume contest was about to start. And that meant it was time to sit back and watch Mike and Jessica ruin their lives once again.

MPOV

I had to make this my best run yet. My current boss was sitting in the audience and I couldn't mess this up. And this one was doubly important because my boss was also Jessica's father. I checked my makeup one last time and then headed out onto stage just as the new announcer said, "And here's Mike and Jessica, get ready for it everyone!"

EPOV

I was going to say hello to Charlie before the costume contest started but Alice told me it would be better to wait. So we sat down in our usual seats and got ready to enjoy the show. Apparently Mike and Jessica were copying our theme again this week because when Jessica came out on stage she was wearing a squirrel outfit. You know, before I met Jessica, I never would have thought it was possible to make a _slutty_ squirrel outfit. And yet, she pulled it off. She was wearing a white short-sleeved leotard with a big diamond cut-out that exposed a bit of her chest and went down to just above her belly button. The bottom of the leotard had little shorts and she was wearing white knee-high socks. And then of course she had a fluffy white tail and little squirrel ears.

I had to wonder why she had chosen to be a squirrel, and if it was fate that she had chosen to be a white squirrel or maybe just dumb luck. But in any case as soon as Jasper saw her he gasped and dove onto the stage, tackling Jessica to the floor in the process. "MISTER LARGE ALBINO SQUIRREL," he yelled, "I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD!"

"What the-get off of me," Jessica screamed, squirming underneath Jasper.

"Mister Large Albino Squirrel, you're talking! Oh, it really _is_ you!"

"I'm a _girl_ you moron!"

But Jasper completely ignored her, babbling on about L.A.S.A., also known as the Large Albino Squirrel Association. He kept hugging her and telling her that L.A.S.A. representatives would arrive soon to take him somewhere safe. And she kept trying to escape and reminding him that she was a girl.

"I'm a _girl_," She screamed. "G-I-R-L! Do you want proof? Here's your proof," Jessica said as she pulled the edges of the diamond to reveal her entire chest. She stood like that, facing the audience for a full minute before she finally realized what she was doing. She screamed and rushed off the stage and out the door.

In the audience Jessica's father just sighed and said, "That's my Jessica, always flashing somebody."

Mike must have heard this because he rushed out onto stage and cursed inwardly for having missed Jessica topless again. I chortled merrily to myself and watched as Mike proceeded to make an idiot out of himself, again. And we didn't even have to lift a finger. He had the poor sense to wear a raccoon costume, which appeared to be little more than a jailbird's striped uniform and a black mask. He had on a tail and little ears as well but no one was really paying attention to that. Mostly because he looked exactly like-

"The Raccoon Bandit," Charlie shouted from a row or two over. "He's been robbing stores all over town for days and no one has been able to catch him but now he shows his face here? It can't be that easy and yet . . ." Charlie pulled a photo and an artist's rendering out of his pocket and sure enough, they both matched Newton. Instantly a group of trained police officers, who just happened to be in the crowd, rushed forward and tackled Newton, clamping him in handcuffs and reading him his rights.

Mike protested profusely but couldn't escape his captors. It would all be sorted out eventually; Mike wasn't really the Raccoon Bandit and he was freed the next morning but at the moment no one, except maybe Alice, knew this. At any rate Jessica's dad confronted Mike just as he was being led out of the auditorium. "Mike, I was willing to give you a chance but now that I know you're a criminal, I have no choice. Mike, you're fired."

"Nooooo," Mike wailed as the police officers escorted him from the gym. Everyone else was silent, the background music that had been playing the whole time had gone silent and everyone was in shock.

"Well," the announcer said, "That disqualifies Mike and Jessica and that finishes the couples round. Up next is everybody's favorite group: The Cullens!"

"And Bella Swan," Charlie yelled angrily from the audience.

"Ah, yes," the announcer said uncertainly, "And Bella Swan. And this week their theme is Animals." And that was our cue, we were already backstage and I gave Bella one last kiss before I went to join the other guys in the right wing and left Bella with the girls in the left wing.

BPOV

As usual I was super nervous before I went out on stage. And I was especially nervous because Charlie was there and would be judging everything that Edward and I did, well maybe just everything that Edward did. Esme squeezed my shoulder and Alice whispered that everything would go well and to just trust her. Edward gave me one last kiss before rushing off and then the announcer gave our cue. Soft, forest music started to play and Esme headed out to meet Carlisle on stage.

Esme was dressed as an adorable panda bear. She had a little black face mask and round bear ears on her head. She had on what she described as a romper, a shirt and shorts that were sewn together. There were short bubble sleeves in black and black shorts. Almost the entire romper was black except for a large white spot on the front. Then, to top it all off, she had a little puff tail, oversized panda bear gloves, and lace-up, mid-calf black boots.

Carlisle was a bit more regal-looking in a white dress shirt and long pants. Around his shoulders he had a short cloak made of fake white fur. Of course, being a polar bear, he had to have little ears and a tail as well. He moved with the slow grace of a predator while Esme hopped happily out onto the stage. He pulled out a rod of bamboo and she clapped excitedly, taking it and hugging it to her chest as he led her down the stage. They stopped at the front of the stage and Carlisle roared like I had never heard him roar before. He wrapped a protective arm around Esme and led her off to the side.

Then it was time for Alice and Jasper, Alice had chosen the extremely appropriate bunny costume and was bouncing around the stage. Her outfit was so good in fact that it took people a little while to figure out that she was in costume. She had on big fluffy black bunny ears and a black corduroy jumper, she looked just like a little girl and when she made a cute face at the audience everyone instinctively cooed. Alice continued to bounce around waiting impatiently for Jasper who finally appeared at the edge of the stage dressed in all green with a giant turtle shell on his back. He moved with vampire slowness but would suddenly jerk ahead to simulate great lengths of time passing, each time he did, Alice's hair got a little longer. By the time he got to the front of the stage, Alice's hair was spilling off the stage and onto the floor.

Next came Emmett and Rosalie. I had begged Rosalie to please, please, _please_ keep it all as conservative as possible but of course, she ignored me. She was wearing a cream colored silk nightgown that had spaghetti straps and only went to her mid-thigh. Then she had on elbow-length black gloves and black thigh-high socks. And to complete the picture of a Siamese cat she had little black ears, a black tail and of course, a little black nose and whiskers. And then came Emmett, dressed up like the dog he was, ha-ha. I groaned inwardly at my own lame pun and I could have sworn I saw Edward shudder from across the stage. Emmett was dressed in a giant dog costume, complete with brown floppy ears. He wolf whistled at Rosalie who pretended to glare over her shoulder and swiped at him with claw-like fingers. Any time she moved at all, every single male eye in the audience followed her every move, drinking her in even after Emmett claimed her as his own. And then it was our turn, or so I thought.

Just before I went out on stage the lights went out and I heard Emmett laughing and rushing around and it sounded like he was kidnapping someone. It occurred to me that I should have expected this because the costume theme was so conservative. Emmett always had to have some way to fool around, and apparently he was taking it out on random strangers. The lights clicked back on and some poor guy was hovering about an inch above the stage with his arms sticking out to the side but falling limp at his elbows. I squinted and discovered that he had wires around his elbows, wrists, knees and ankles, and when I looked up I discovered Emmett in the rafters with a giant wooden T. He had turned the poor boy into a marionette.

I watched in horror and slight amusement and the boy, who I later realized was Eli, a classmate of ours. Danced around in silly circles and moved with surprising grace, I never knew Emmett was so good with puppets.

"I hate you," Eli said, spinning around in a circle. "I really hate you, whoever is doing this to me!" The lights went out again and Eli was now in a bright pink tutu and a tiara was stuck in his short, curly dark brown hair. "Okay," Eli said, his voice rising in anger, "I really hate you now!" He continued to dance around on stage and scream at someone in the audience who wouldn't stop laughing. "Quiet Betsy! This isn't funny!"

Betsy tried to answer but she was laughing too hard, instead she just fell out of her chair. A guy stood up, a guy who I recognized as Parker. "I completely disagree with you, Eli. This is hilarious!" Eli scowled and danced around a little bit more before Emmett made him take a bow and the lights went out again. When they came back on Eli was gone and Emmett was back on stage, motioning for us to go.

The soft music resumed and I took a brave step out onto the stage. I had to say, Alice had done an amazing job with my costume. It was a fuzzy white sweater that had matching pants that, somehow, weren't hideous looking even though they were covered in fake fur. I had on a little grey skirt and soft little ears. Alice had given me some fingerless black gloves and simple black flats. I walked shyly out onto the stage but Edward wasn't there, I walked up to the front of the stage and looked around for him. And then Edward snuck up on my, grabbing my shoulders and spinning me around to face him. My breath caught in my throat. He was wearing brown pants and a half coat that covered only his shoulders in the front but hung down over his back. Over his head he had a brown hood with orange fur that matched his hair. Of course the hood had ears and he had a tail.

We stared at each other for a minute and, miraculously, I knew what to say. "The lion fell in love with the lamb," I said in a voice just above a whisper. "What a silly lamb."

"What a sick, masochist lion," he whispered back before taking me in his arms and kissing me before he led me to the front of the stage. We joined hands and took a bow before walking off stage, some of us in a bigger hurry than others.

The good news? Charlie was glad to see that I was having fun and that things were going well with the contest and he wouldn't be coming to any more of the contest.

The bad news? I already knew what the next topic would be, and boy it was horrible.


	7. Scooby Snax and Tranq Darts

**We are very sorry for the delay and beg your forgiveness for you see . . . Jacob discovered our story and then traveled all the way out to where we live to get some revenge. So we had to flee to Florida to get away from him and his endless barrage of pies. There we spent the last 55 days hiding behind our fort of slowly-disappearing graham crackers exchanging various types of pie-ammunition and as time went on and our fort shrunk more and more we found it harder and harder to write. Sorry about the ending. ~Sheika and Friend**

Chapter 7: Scooby Snax and Tranquilizer Darts

BPOV

I should have never trusted Alice. I should have automatically been suspicious when she suggested we have an "entertainer" theme. Honestly, was it too much to ask to have clowns and a magician or something? Apparently it was.

APOV

I smiled for Bella and Charlie and pretended like everything was peachy keen. Bella went home with Charlie that night and the rest of us piled into cars and drove home. I didn't even wait for the car to stop, as soon as we were on Cullen property I was out the door and running inside, closely followed by Jasper, which, in hind sight, wasn't a very good idea. After all, I was the one driving. Without me the car kept speeding down the driveway, plowing through the garage without stopping and finally crashing into the river that ran around the side of the house. The wheels turned pointlessly in the air while I stormed into the house. I was barely inside when I tore off my bunny ears and stormed upstairs to my room, Jasper close on my heels. As soon as I was in my room I started clawing at my outfit.

"Ug, it's so . . . innocent! I can't stand it! Jasper, strip me!"

"Gladly," he yelled, helping me out of my costume. I sighed happily once I was free of the cutesiness. Jasper tied to take off his turtle costume but got stuck on his back instead. I sighed and threw on a robe before going to find Rosalie and Esme who had also put away their cute costumes and joined me in the living room.

"Emmett decided it would be more fun to chase his tail," Rosalie grumbled.

"Carlisle started complaining that it wasn't cold enough and went to go sit inside the freezer," Esme sighed.

"Well I think we can all agree that we need to do _something_ to make up for this being such a terrible costume day. But what?" Rosalie smiled and whispered something in my ear. I grinned evilly, "I like the way you think."

"The only problem is finding good inspiration. I mean, the stores around here aren't good enough."

I thought for a minute, and then a brilliant came to me. "Get in the van everyone! We're going on a road trip!"

BPOV

If I had known what had stood on the other side of my front door or what it where it would take me, I never would have opened the door. I never even would have gone near the door. But I didn't know, so I opened the door and was faced with something that barely registered on my strange-ohmmeter. I just sighed and closed the door, shouting goodbye to Charlie and walking towards the van.

A few minutes later and I was in a stupid costume and we were on the road. Carlisle was smiling happily behind the wheel in a white shirt, blue jeans and an orange ascot that Esme kept fiddling with. Esme had donned an orange wig and had a purple dress, light pink tights, purple shoes and a green neck scarf. Alice was next to them on the bench seat in an orange sweater and mini skirt, along with brown shoes and orange knee-highs. She had on thick glasses and some sort of large book open in her lap, possibly the dictionary. However, in the backseat, things just got stranger. Emmett was in a giant brown and black-spotted dog suit, and was smiling like an idiot, bumping into everyone and talking funny, well, funnier than usual. Alice was dressed likewise but in a smaller outfit and was scowling out at the world.

"This was my idea," she kept yelling. "Why am I in the most humiliating outfit of all?"

"Rappy," Emmett barked. "Ri ridn't row rou rould ralk!"

"Shut up, you moron, shut up!"

Jasper was relatively normal looking, which was pretty strange for him. He had on a baggy green t-shirt and brown pants. And banging around the backseat was Edward, inside a giant box . . . of dog treats. More specially, Scooby Snax. Emmett tackled him every time we turned a corner and Edward was helpless to do anything but tumble around the back of the van, grumbling loudly. Rosalie kicked him whenever he got too close, though. As usual she completely refused to be a part of the stupidity and was stroking her tranquilizer gun, which was eternally aimed at Jasper.

Now what about me, you might ask? I was wearing a miniature cardboard replica of the van. This was a giant green and aqua box with orange daisy flowers and with "The Mystery Machine" written on the side.

"Does anyone mind if I ask where we're going?" No one answered. I looked around at everyone in the van. Alice and Rosalie and Esme were smiling but everyone else looked confused. "You _do_ know where we're going, right? Carlisle?"

"Where is we're going, again, exactly?"

"We're going to Vegas," Alice, Rosalie and Esme squealed with obvious delight.

"Vegas," I whispered, and then everything started going fuzzy and then everything went black.

When I woke up again apparently three days had passed, though the costume contest was still set for the next day, because apparently it had been Thursday when we did the animal theme and the school was closed Friday due to a freak snow storm. As soon as I opened my eyes I started screaming because, hovering over me, was a life-sized cutout of Edward, staring creepily at me in a way he hadn't done since I first moved to Forks and he spent weeks sitting in trees outside my house, stalking me.

Instantly the real Edward came rushing into the room. "What's wrong," he yelled. Of course I screamed again, but not because I thought there were two Edwards, oh no. It was because he was wearing a white Marilyn Monroe dress, green lipstick, that I later discovered was glow-in-the-dark, and was covered in pink glitter. "Oh good," he said, "You're finally awake. Maybe now things can return to normal."

"What are talking about?" I sat up and immediately there was a thick _splat_ and something landed in my lap. I looked down to see a pile of pancakes, some covered in syrup. "Edward, what is this?"

"Well, um," Edward rubbed the carpet with the toe of his shoe nervously. "Emmett and I had a little contest to see how many pancakes we could stack on your forehead before you woke up or the stack fell over." I stared at him. "We got to 42 before you punched Emmett . . . below the belt. I laughed but he insisted that we stop."

I looked down at my lap again and realized I was in my underwear, and underwear I didn't recognize. "What's with this," I screeched, quickly trying to cover myself with pancakes.

"Allow me to demonstrate," Alice said from the doorway. She flicked a switch and turned off the lights. It took me a moment to notice but sure enough . . .

"Why is my underwear glowing in the dark," I asked. "And why are Edward's lips glowing?"

"Well, the underwear was actually your idea. The lipstick was mine." Alice flipped the lights back on. "And if you'll look, you are wearing a bra with lots of little jingle bells on it." I looked down and bobbed up and down a time or two and sure enough little silver bells jingled.

Curious to see what else had happened during the three days I was unconscious but apparently active I pushed the pancakes off myself and stood up, promptly smacked into a wall and fell back down.

"Oh, I probably should have warned you about that," Edward said. "Last night you got up, walked into that wall and fell down. You didn't move after that, just kept sleeping."

I glared at Edward and stood up carefully. I wanted to take a little revenge against him but it really should have waited until later. But, with my fuzzy half-asleep brain I didn't think of the consequences and picked up the syrup-soaked pancakes and rubbed myself with them and then climbed onto Edward's back, effectively sticking us together. "Ha," I said. "Now we're stuck together and there's nothing you can do about it!"

"But Bella, love, what about your clothes?"

I didn't want to admit this obvious flaw in my plan so I used my wittiest comeback. "Shut up, Edward." I started kicking him until he moved forward and into the next room. Unfortunately, things weren't much better in there. Feathers were strewn everywhere and there were a handful of empty liquor bottles around and in the hot tub. A children's Jeep car had crashed into the window that led out onto the balcony and had broken the glass but not had the power to go all the way through. Jasper was in the process of making a large bodysuit made entirely out of sequins, Carlisle was swinging by his ankles from a rope attached to the chandelier, Emmett and Rosalie were watching something on the TV and Esme was nowhere to be seen.

"What on earth happened in here," I asked.

Everyone turned to stare at me. "That's my fault," Rosalie said. "Three days ago, in the car, I accidentally shot you with a tranquilizer dart that I usually use on Jasper, which means it has enough power to take down the entire town of Forks, excluding vampires, and you apparently went a little crazy because of it."

"Don't worry," Emmett piped up, "We've got video of the entire thing so you won't have missed a thing!"

"Oh dear God," I said, dropping my head into my hands. "If I'm going to see this then I need to be wearing proper clothes."

I peeled myself off Edward's back and hobbled into the bedroom again as Alice yelled, "Your suitcase is on the bed!" I found the suitcase and opened it up, relieved to see some more normal underwear. When I changed I found about fifty dollars in fives, tens and even a twenty, inside my bra and a bunch of ones stuffed inside my underwear. I opened the suitcase and I was horrified at what was inside.

APOV

"Three . . . two . . . one . . ."

"AHHHHHHHHH!" Bella came storming out of her room in a tight, leopard print, strapless mini dress and ridiculously high heels. "What happened to my clothes?"

"Well, love," Edward said, "you bought that yourself. As well as . . . well, why don't we just go to tape? Emmett?"

"Yup!"

I watched Bella wobble her way over to the couch and then sink into her seat as the video started rolling. Tastefully edited to premier with Bella stumbling around with a bottle of Vodka in her hands and congratulating everyone on making it to Vegas and hoping one of us would be the next American Idol. There was some running around, more drinks, dancing with various partners, human and vampire alike, and then shopping in a very seedy looking shop.

"Hey, that was a nice shop," Rosalie said. "We should go there again today."

I nodded and Bella turned to stare at Rosalie like she had just grown an extra head and decided Mike Newton was hot. Bella was about to say something but suddenly her drunken voice interrupted on the TV.

"Emmett Cynthia Cullen," she yelled, except since she was drunk it sounded more like "El-met Cin-tie-a Cool-aid, you've been stealing Alice's height haven't you? Admit it! You're stealing it!"

"What," Emmett looked slightly alarmed by the short, drunk human who was currently backing him into a corner and punctuating various words and syllables with sharp jabs to his chest.

"You stole it didn't you," Alice yelled. "Didn't you?" Emmett just gaped. "Give it back, give it back," Alice began jumping up and down as if to prove that she needed the height more. "Give it back! Give it back!" Quickly Emmett lost control and began to run around screaming at the top of his lungs and sobbing hysterically. Alice paused as she ran by the camera, "I know he didn't steal my height, I just like torturing him." This continued for another ten seconds or so before it switched to some seedy looking footage of Bella stripping for a club of cheering guys.

"I can't believe this," she said, shooting up from the couch. "I need a drink." She walked over to the dishwasher, intending to get a glass out, but when she opened it, Esme popped out, screaming. "AHHH!" Bella grabbed the closet thing and swung hard at Esme before she could think. So Esme ended up with a nice frying pan mark on her face that she was not too happy about.

After that we decided it would probably be a good idea to get out of the house for a while and do something more productive.

BPOV

Never believe anything the Cullens tell you, ever. When they say they're going to do something productive for once, that doesn't mean they're going to, oh say, help me think of an excuse to tell Charlie to explain why I've been gone and in Vegas for the last three days. Oh no. In fact, it really means that we're going to dress like whores and get jobs for the day in a strip club for "research" and "costume development."

"Have I mentioned how much I hate you, recently," I asked as I was dragged into the elevator of the hotel.

"No but it's always nice to hear," Alice said, hugging me. "Besides, it could have been worse; I could have made you leave the house in a tight, revealing white bodysuit."

"That sounds oddly specific," I commented.

"That's because I had the outfit all lined up for you but then you were going to throw such a fit I figured it would just be easier to wait until later." And so, we headed out to downtown Vegas, pretending that it was just another ordinary day in Nevada. The four of us were all dressed similarly in different sundresses, mine in blue, Rosalie's in red, Alice's in yellow and Esme's in purple. And for once, nothing absurdly out of the ordinary happened. This must give you some idea of what I consider ordinary because we ended up trying on clothes in a store that sells almost exclusively to . . . female entertainers in Vegas.

"I refuse to come out in this," I yelled from my little booth in the back of the store.

"Bella get out here or I'll make you pole dance," Rosalie threatened. I could hear Alice giggling and knew that unless I changed my mind that I would be getting to know a pole in the very near future. Reluctantly I opened the door and blushed in the doorway. The girls gasped appreciatively and then rushed forward to drag me out towards the little pedestal and three-way mirror. They had found me a little schoolgirl uniform, and I could not stop blushing. It had little red plaid skirt that was just barely covering my butt and a little back wrap top that seemed a size or two too small. I wriggled impatiently as Alice tugged at my white knee high socks, trying to make them even, and Rosalie slipped my feet into 5-inch black heels with no ankle strap so I was sure that they'd be falling off.

Esme's outfit was by far the tamest of all of us, and that was saying something considering she was wearing white glitter short-shorts and chaps that went from her mid-thigh and fell to the floor in the same white glitter fabric and rimmed with a strip of black on the top. She had on a cropped wrap top and a little headset like she was a singer. "You look adorable, Bella. Very classic."

"Classic what? Stripper?"

"Yes," Alice said. "Classic stripper." She cocked her hip, planting a fist on it. Alice had on cowboy boots that had enough of a heel to make her about as tall as me when I was in flats . . . or stuck in two inches of mud. She had a micro-mini denim skirt and a skimpy brown suede vest with fringe hanging down over. She of course had on a cowboy hat and was talking in a Southern accent like Jasper did when he got really mad. But skimpy as her outfit was, it was nothing compared to Rosalie's.

She had on platform black heels with little pink hearts on the platform that lit up when she walked. Then she had on the tightest of tight little black dresses that had no shoulder straps, dipped down to a very deep V in the front, and had nothing but crisscrossing ribbons on the side. And, judging by the gaps in the side of her dress, that was all she was wearing. Her hair was piled up onto the top of her head but you could tell by looking that it would only take a small pull of that ribbon to have it all fall loose. Bright lipstick and dark sunglasses completed her look.

They go outside; some hot male strippers are there in outfits that compliment the girls' outfits. Use you imaginations, the guys were hot. They go off somewhere but on their way to wherever they see none other than Mike Newton who has won a free trip to Vegas because of a magazine that the Cullens sent to Miguel Nuevo-pueblo. He's so excited to be in Vegas that he decides to go to a strip club. The girls have a problem with this and decide to follow him and hurt him as per usual. They go into the club but pass the guys on the way. Edward gets confused about which vampire series he's in and starts yelling "SOOHKEY IS MINE" in a strange southern accent and running after everyone.

Once inside the club, after having locked a frantic Edward in a closet along with Jasper who insisted he just liked the way the closet looked, the girls get ready to go on stage. Esme and Rosalie get into position as waitresses and Alice helps Bella get ready backstage. Bella goes out to dance and does a little routine before slipping on a random thong that "someone" has left on the stage. She slips and her black heels, which had no ankle strap, go flying right off her feet. The thong hits Newton in the face and the heel hits him in the crotch, causing him to double over and shove his face into Alice's cleavage. Esme and Rosalie both immediately dump a tray full of drinks each onto the head of Newton while Alice screams, discovers the thong, and accuses Newton of being a pervert. Two big burly biker guys the next table over hear the word "pervert" and see Newton and poor little Alice who's nearly in tears and come over.

"Don't worry, darling," they say, cracking their knuckles. "We'll take care of him." And then they drag Newton out the door, grabbing a bucket of ice on their way. Alice grabs Rosalie, Esme and Bella and they high tail it out of there, passing by Newton who was forcibly stripped and shoved into lederhosen and, held up by his ankles by one of the men, was having ice shoved down his shorts by the other man.

They hop back into the van that comes swerving around the corner, now jet black, with Emmett leaning precariously out the door he grabs Bella and Rosalie and Edward grabs Esme and Alice by the wrist and yanks them inside. Both of them are screaming "GET IN THE VAN!" All the guys are wearing dark suits, black sunglasses and iPod ear buds. Emmett shoves silver armored suitcases into the arms of each of the girls and tells them to get changed, curtains mysteriously falling down from the ceiling.

They drive home and then head off to school to get ready for the costume contest. They get ready in the locker room and then go to watch Newton and Jessica for their turn. The announcer doesn't have a theme title for them but Newton comes out anyway in a white suit. It looks tacky and someone throws a water bottle at him and he tries to dodge but it hits him in the crotch anyway and then it breaks, making a large wet stain on the front of his pants. Jessica comes storming out to ask him why she was entered in this round because she didn't have a costume prepared and people start clapping. When she asks what's going on he whispers that they think she's a stripper and she slaps him and then storms off stage in her black stiletto heels, black leather mini skirt and sequined tank top with a low neckline.

The announcer makes a snappy comment and then Newton grumbles off stage. Next it's the Cullens with their "entertainer" theme. First come the guys, out on stage one right after the other. Jasper comes out first, wearing a black tuxedo, silk top hat, a strange little mustache and spectacles. Emmett is next wearing a long fake white leopard fur-trimmed coat that sparkled in the light, a white fedora hat with a purple feather and a leopard print band around the base, and a giant glittering "E" necklace. Edward is next, wearing a short red silk robe trimmed with black, black pants and shoes, with his hair slicked back and a simple pipe in his hand. The word "Hefner" can be seen embroidered in cursive on the breast of his robe. Lastly is Carlisle who is being somewhat shady at the moment, in a long tan trench coat and black pants with his hands shoved deeply into his pockets.

Then the lights go black, and spotlights one by one appear on each of the girls. First is Alice, her hair has been swept back and pulled into a tight, tiny bun and is hidden by a simple fabric cover. She is kneeling at the feet of Jasper wearing a yellow flowered kimono that comes to her knees in the front but hangs down in the back. She's wearing the traditional shoes and her face is painted like the traditional geisha. She looks up at Jasper who couches down next to her and takes her hands but freezes there, waiting for the others. Next a spotlight hits Rosalie who spins around to face Emmett. She's wearing a sparkling pink tube top with matching super-short shorts and a sheer white wrap skirt. She has on white knee high boots, elbow length gloves and a little hat perched on the back of her head with some pink feathers in it. She puts her hands on Emmett's chest and he captures her wrists, staring into her eyes and they freeze.

Next the light hits on Bella and the crowd, which had been clapping and cheering at Rosalie's costume, falls silent. Bella starts to freak out but with a giant passion and confidence boost she continues on. Bella's in taller-than-tall black heels, fishnet stockings and a red strapless leotard that seems to be glued to her body. She has white cuffs on her wrists and a matching collar at her neck (like from a dress shirt) and big white bunny ears are perched on top of her head. She model walks it out in front of Edward a few steps and then pivots so that the back of her outfit is seen, the back of the leotard doesn't appear until her hips where a little white tail is sitting. She places a fist on her hip, bends at the waist, and puts a finger on her lips, looking over her shoulder at Edward.

Finally its Esme's turn; the light flashes on an empty chair. A black boot appears on the chair followed by Esme, who is in a trench coat of her own, as well as dark sunglasses and a black fedora hat. She pulls down her glasses to peer at Carlisle and then climbs up on the chair, popping the first button off his coat as she does. He waggles a finger at her and points to her own coat. So she undoes a button herself. They continue with this until all the buttons are undone but the coats remain. Esme flicks off her fedora as Carlisle throws open her trench coat, revealing a blue police man's cap under her old hat and a cropped blue top and shorts combo under the coat. A holster is sitting crooked on her hip with a gun and a pair of handcuffs. She throws open Carlisle's coat to reveal nothing but cuffs and a collar, similar to Bella's. The Chip 'N' Dales Dancer has arrived! Esme jumps to the floor and plops down in the chair, she rests her chin in her hands and her elbows on her knees and Carlisle stands behind her, leaning over and resting his hands on her shoulder.

The announcer celebrates the Cullens' "entertainer" theme and declares them the winners. They hurry off stage to thunderous applause and fangirl and fanboy attacks.


	8. Peanut Butter and Baby Bumps

**This week on: VOL - We mock Newton less than usual, we mock several races of magical creatures, reveal what went on "after hours" in Vegas, ruin food and continue our battle with copyright infringement!**

**HEY, REMEMBER WHEN THIS STORY WAS UPDATED WITH ANY SORT OF CONSISTENCY? NEITHER DO WE! Well this chapter is about . . . maybe 14 or so pages in Word and its chock full of stupid scandals and took me several weeks to write. But~ on Friday our finals will be done and we will have more free time and be actually seeing each other on a regular basis so the last chapter of this story (yay) and a new story should be up soon-ish . . . or later-ish :D Enjoy! **

**Characters are (c) Stephenie Meyer, "You Belong With Me" lyrics (c) Taylor Swift, "(Bella) You Belong With Me - Jacob's Remix" lyrics (c) of someone who is not us. We own nothing, NOTHING!**

Title – Peanut Butter and Baby Bumps

Chapter 8 – Vampire Theme

EPOV

"Well," Emmett asked, hovering over my shoulder. "Anything?"

"Nope," I sighed. "The result's still not registering." There was a clunk as it landed in the garbage can in the kitchen. We had been using the timer on the microwave to wait for the results to come in but it was no use.

"Well, I guess we'll just have to wait and see the natural way," Emmett said. "Do you remember what the signs were?"

"No, probably should have paid more attention in health class, right?" I offered him a weak smile. "What if it really happened, though? I know Carlisle and Esme love a big family but . . ." my voice trailed off.

"Don't worry," Emmett said, laying a comforting hand on my shoulder. "We'll all get through this." He wrapped me in one of his signature bear hugs and I couldn't control myself any more. I started sobbing quietly, splashing my face with a water bottle to pretend like I was crying.

APOV

"The morons are in the kitchen, you guys," I called as stuck my head around the corner. I didn't know what Edward and Emmett were doing but they tried to act cool by turning the hug into a wrestling match.

"Knock it off," Rosalie said, kicking them as she passed. "We need to decide the next theme."

"Aren't we done with this yet," Bella sighed, plopping down into a chair. "We've already had seven themes. How many more are we going to do? And why is this entire week of the calendar in red," she added after glancing at the calendar.

"Well Bella, this is your PMS week and we need to be prepared. Remember the first time when we weren't ready and you destroyed the house? Setting the whole kitchen on fire, then breaking a hole in the wall and broke several of your ribs and then were fine five minutes later? We didn't want to have to go through that **Every 28 Days**. So we keep a whole chest filled with chocolate and peanut butter for when you're PMSing. Speaking of which-"

"Alice I am not discussing my period at the breakfast table."

"Dinner table?"

"ALICE!"

"Fine, what should we do for this tomorrow's theme? And why are you two whispering?" Emmett and Edward immediately stopped whispering and stared at me. "Do either of you have any ideas?"

"Why don't we do something simple? A nice, classic vampire theme," Bella suggested. "Its perfect, its Halloween so no one would ever put two and two together and I bet you guys would have a lot of fun."

"Actually, that's a great idea. Nice thinking, Bella."

"Great, well, we'll go get supplies," Edward yelled, his voice high and squeaky with hysteria. He grabbed Emmett's arm and bolted from the house before Bella could even react.

"What was that about?"

EmPOV

"You've got to try and hold it together, man. I know this is a lot to handle but you can't go falling apart. What'll happen to Bella? You're her emotional rock!"

"I know," Edward sobbed, "But I can't help it!"

"Alright, just calm down. We'll get some chocolate and peanut butter and all will be well, it'll all work out. Bella can handle this."

We shared another brotherly hug while a little boy looked on curiously from the end of the aisle clutching a bag of marshmallows to his chest.

Half an hour later we returned home with several bags, two filled with strange combinations of food and another filled with white paint, glitter, baby powder, popsicle sticks, and several sets of fake, plastic, glow in the dark fangs. We left the food in the kitchen and brought the rest of the things upstairs. Alice was glad to see us and immediately sent us to work on different costumes. Unfortunately, the peace didn't last long. Soon Bella started to act strangely.

BPOV

I don't know what it was, and at first it was easy to shake off, but this feeling just kept hitting me over and over again. Personally, I blamed Jasper, though he seemed just as confused as I was. I decided that I was going to get to the bottom of this. "I'm going to get a snack," I said, getting up slowly and cracking my back, which was sore because I had spent so much time hunched over on the floor.

After a moment I sensed faint footsteps behind me and Edward appeared next to me in the kitchen. He stared at me for a minute and then, before I could ask him what was going on, he grabbed a jar of peanut butter and a jar of pickles from the fridge. I looked at him for a moment, my revulsion clear on my face but then, slowly my face softened into a smile and I grabbed a spoon out of the drawer.

APOV

"Does anyone else notice something suspicious going on?"

"Like how when Edward went shopping he brought back peanut butter, pickles, marshmallow and sauerkraut? Yes," Rosalie said. "I noticed."

"Now that you mention it," Esme said quietly from the corner. "She has been wearing baggy clothes since we got back from Las Vegas. And I don't think she's gotten her period yet."

"And I've been getting strange vibes all day. I'm assuming they're from Bella but the two of them are spending so much time together now that it's hard to tell," Jasper added, thoughtfully.

"Strange vibes, cravings for strange, disgusting-sounding combinations of food, no period or PMS in sight, and baggy clothing," I said, ticking each off idea off on my fingers as I said them. "What does this mean?" I waited. "No, seriously, what does this mean? I don't remember what it was like to be a human and health class is boring." Esme glared at me. "What? It is."

"Well," Esme said. "Let's just say, it looks like there was a little more than just hanky panky going on in Vegas."

Everything went silent and still as we all soaked this in. Then we all exchanged looks and bolted for the kitchen.

BPOV

Edward heard the footsteps before I did but soon enough I heard the stampede of angry vampire feet. The peanut butter jar and the pickle jar crashed to the floor, flecks of peanut butter hitting my shoes and the floor while pickle juice splattered over everything. Esme, Alice, Rosalie, and Jasper grabbed me and pulled me into the living room and I caught a glimpse of Emmett corralling Edward upstairs before I lost track of what was going on. For a moment I wondered where Carlisle was but then I remembered that he had shut himself up in his office to try and get some work done after our long weekend in Vegas.

"How could you not tell us," Alice demanded as I was flung onto the couch.

EPOV

"You've got to tell them," Emmett hissed as we rushed into my room.

BPOV

"What are you talking about," I asked, trying to shrink back into the couch.

EPOV

"Are you sure you know what you're talking about," I asked, trying to make sure he understood what that meant.

BPOV

"Don't play stupid with us," Rosalie said. "We already know!"

EPOV

"What do you think I am? Stupid? Of course I know what I'm talking about."

BPOV

"Just admit it, Bella, its okay," Esme said, laying a hand on my knee.

EPOV

"I guess it's time to admit it."

BPOV

"Admit what," I practically screamed.

EPOV

"I'm pregnant."

BPOV

"You're pregnant."

All the blood rushed out of my face and I started getting dizzy, I didn't know what to say and I was afraid I was going to faint.

"She's going to faint," Alice yelled.

"Is that bad for the baby?"

"Carlisle!"

EPOV

"Carlisle."

BPOV

"I'm not pregnant," I yelled, bolting up from the couch, my fists clenched in anger. "I'm _not_ pregnant!"

"Its okay, Bella," Alice said. "I had a feeling there was something kinky going on in Vegas. I don't blame my brother, frankly, you looked adorable."

"I keep telling you, I'm not pregnant!"

"She's telling the truth," Jasper piped up. "Her emotional grid is clear."

All the vampire faces in the room, which had turned to Jasper when he started talking, swung slowly back to me.

"You're not pregnant," Rosalie said.

"No."

"You're not pregnant . . . YOU'RE NOT PREGNANT!"

We laughed and cheered and hugged for a moment. "Don't get us wrong," Esme said. "We'd love you anyway but it can be so troublesome having a baby in high school. Especially if the father is a vampire."

"Wait a minute," Jasper said. "If Bella's not pregnant then . . . who is?"

CPOV

There was a soft knock at my door and I heard Edward mumble my name. "Come in, Edward." The door opened a crack and Edward stuck his head into the crack. "Yes," I prompted when he didn't say anything. "Is there something you need?"

"Carlisle . . . no, Dad," my chest swelled with pride and love at hearing him call me that. "I have a little announcement to make." Of course, had I been a mortal father I would have sensed something very wrong with that one little sentence. But being an immortal I had no idea what was coming next. "I'm pregnant."

"You mean you got Bella pregnant," I said, barely keeping my voice level. "What were you _thinking_? She has her whole life ahead of her," I bellowed.

"No, no, no," Edward said hurriedly. "I mean, _I'm_ pregnant." He stepped out from behind the door, revealing a maternity shirt stretched over what appeared to be his very pregnant belly. He smiled weakly at me, rubbing his "belly" and pretending to blush. I stared at him for a full minute, then at his belly and when my eyes finally focused enough to read the "vampire inside" stamp on the shirt, I completely lost it. I closed my folder, shut off my computer and walked calmly out the door. I ran hurriedly towards the stairs, which I took three at a time at a run, and then sprinted out of the house.

APOV

"Why is Carlisle thinking about coffee?"

CPOV

I was back less than two minutes later, which was pretty good time considering all the traffic that always seemed to be in the coffee shops. I reversed my exit and calmly walked back into my office where, thankfully, Edward was right where I left him. I stepped in front of him and took a big sip of the scalding hot, disgusting coffee. Flinching as the taste hit my tongue I spit it all in Edward's face. He flinched and sputtered and I hoped that I didn't hear him say "That better be decaf, caffeine isn't good for the baby."

Not yet satisfied with my little revenge and desperate to get the taste out of my mouth I dragged him into the bathroom where I used a whole bottle of mouth wash, gargled and then spit in Edward's face . . . repeatedly.

"I hope that's not alcohol mouth wash. It's not good for the-" he was cut off as another stream of blue mouthwash hit him in the face. I was about to hit him again but discovered that the bottle of mouthwash was empty. So I chucked the bottle at Edward's face and dragged him downstairs so that the rest of the family could share in my bafflement.

You know, you would think that after spending so many decades with these people I call my family that I would be able to predict at least _some_ of their actions. Or that I would be used to this kind of thing, but they never fail to surprise me. When I dragged Edward into the living room I expected a scene of relative normalcy. Which, given what seemed to be running through the minds of my family members recently, is what I found.

Confetti was thrown into the air and everyone jumped up from behind something yelling, "Surprise! Baby shower!"

Edward gasped like a little girl and clapped his hands, squeaking, "For me? Oh you shouldn't have," over and over again.

"No, really," I said. "You shouldn't have. What were you thinking? You're just egging him on! You don't want to provoke this kind of behavior, he is clearly mentally unstable right now," I said, starting into a short speech about Edward's instability at the moment.

EPOV

As Carlisle launched into his long speech about how unstable I was mentally I quickly tuned him out. I could tell because one by one I stopped hearing his echo in their brains. Some of them even posted pictures of Carlisle with "blah blah blah" speech bubbles. Most of them had little stick figures or crudely drawn characters. But Esme's was by-far the best one. Carlisle had apparently been drawn by a little kid; his body was one big oval with smaller ovals for arms and legs. He had curly claws at the end of his arms and little vampire fangs in his angry little mouth. But perhaps the strangest part was that he had very thick angry eyebrows, a Mohawk that was purple and a black belt with silver studs on it. The only way I could tell that it was Carlisle, other than the speech bubble, was the handy "Carlisle" label and an arrow.

Jasper disappeared for a moment and reappeared next to Bella who, to her credit, only flinched a little bit. He held out a large silver bucket and asked if she would do the honors. Bella beamed like this was the greatest moment of her life. Eagerly she took the bucket and allowed Jasper to pick her up and rush her behind Carlisle. She raised the bucket over her head and then clomped it down onto Carlisle's. With a cheer everyone clapped and then we all rushed outside to our cars to go celebrate my baby shower downtown.

For _some reason_ we ended up back home not long after we set out because shop owners seemed uncomfortable around a pregnant guy. I know they've seen them before, what about that guy on Oprah? Well I arrived back at home in a huff and grabbed a jar of peanut butter from the kitchen before plopping down to watch everyone work in their costumes.

"Has anyone else noticed that our adventures have become increasingly shorter and smarter lately?"

"Shut up, Edward. Everyone is busy with school and work, and big papers and soul-crushing projects and stupid teachers that just make you want to punch the stuffing out of a few couches but then feel bad because the couches had nothing to do with it and now you have no where to sit so you go all werewolf on a couple thousand bean bag chairs but then you're even more upset because the bean bag chairs already had to suffer through the deaths of the couches and now they're dead too and all those little children who had been staying at your house for some reason are now trying to inhale all the little beans and its not healthy and you've got ten hours of homework due for tomorrow and only twenty minutes to do it in but you've got no where to do it because you destroyed all the couches and bean bag chairs that, sadly, were the only furniture in your giant penthouse mansion and then it's time for finals and you don't know anything!"

"That was oddly specific, Alice," Carlisle said.

"Speaking of werewolves," Bella started, completely ignoring most of what Alice had just said. "I wonder what Jacob is up to. I feel like we haven't heard from him in a while."

Jacob's Guy Friend's POV

"Jacob," Billy called, "Your friends are here." We all followed Billy inside, completely at home in his house and made our way over to Jake's room where a lot of loud, perky music could be heard leaking through the door. "Jacob," Billy yelled, now pounding on the door. "Open up, your friends are here!"

There was still no reply so Billy pushed open the door and screamed at Jacob, finally getting his attention. Unfortunately this meant that he noticed us and we couldn't back away slowly. "Hey everybody," Jacob yelled enthusiastically, "you're just in time for the next verse!"

Jacob went back to strumming an invisible guitar and jumping around his room, shirtless, of course. Billy shook his head and wheeled off and we edged into the room, closed the doors and the curtains, just in case someone happened to come by. "Come on guys, sing along," Jacob yelled. As soon as the guitar solo was done he picked up a doggy hairbrush and started singing into it, "_Oh, I remember you driving to my house in the middle of the night, I'm the one who makes you laugh when you know you're about to cry-_"

We all just stared at him and finally Christina got up and went into the little bathroom that was connected to Jake's bedroom. "Here, Jake," She called. "You need these more than I do." Two bright green things came flying out of the bathroom and hit Jacob square in the face, cutting part of the lyrics. There was a loud pop and a tall golden-brown wolf sauntered out of the bathroom.

"_I think I know where you belong. I think its with-oof!_ What is this? Oh very funny, Christina, a bra and panties. Oh, penguins! Cute!"

There was a very long pause, during which time Jacob resumed dancing and singing and then, when the song ended, am

EPOV

"I want peanut butter," I said finally, breaking the silence.

"There's a couple jars in the cooler," Bella said, pointing across the room.

"But I want chocolate, too," I whined.

"Then have a peanut butter cup," she said.

"I have a better idea!" I ran downstairs and returned with a squeeze bottle of chocolate syrup and the biggest jar of peanut butter I could find, which was roughly the size of my head. I opened the jar and sniffed, enjoying the scent, then squeezed the bottle of chocolate, and inhaled that scent, and that's when Emmett got a brilliant idea.

BPOV

The good thing about working with vampires, and probably the only reason why we had been able to compete in so many rounds of the costume contest, is that they work very quickly. So in no time Esme's, Alice's and Rosalie's dresses were ready and it was time for me to find an outfit to wear. Of course, I could never be allowed to pick my own outfit. Oh no. That would be too easy.

I swear, though, I was only gone for a minute, two tops. I don't know how he could've gotten into this much trouble this quickly but then, Edward never ceases to amaze me. Alice had shoved me into a shiny, pastel-colored dress with a thick white leather belt and white go-go boots, even though I insisted that this was in no way a normal look. She had sent me back into the costume room to get the boys' opinions and I was horrified at what I saw.

Edward had somehow made a bikini top out of peanut butter and decorated with chocolate. He had somehow concealed his "baby" because it almost appeared real, except for the fact that Edward was clearly male and not pregnant.

"Hello, lover darling," he said. I gagged. I couldn't help it, it just looked disgusting, especially because he was being showered with mini chocolate chips. Edward was sprawled out on a red loveseat and in the background Carlisle and Jasper had slipped into white Greek tunics and wings that must have been left over from the angel/devil theme. Carlisle was strumming a small harp and Jasper was throwing the chocolate chips. Repressing another gag I backed out of the room, went down the stairs and out the front door.

"Call me when Edward has his baby or regains some level of sanity," I called over my shoulder. "Otherwise I'll see you at school in . . . well whenever someone decides its morning."

Charlie's POV

Why does Bella smell like peanut butter?

BPOV

I can't remember the last time I went out and was wearing my own clothes that I, myself, picked out. I went to school that day in a pair of my old jeans that had a hole in the knee and a couple of stains, a blue turtleneck and plain, old sneakers. Charlie was still marveling because he hadn't seen me for so long and was sad to see me go but decided that school and work were more important. And, for once, my good luck continued. Edward stayed home that day, which made me lonely but was probably for the better considering his mental state, and the day was relatively normal. We actually had to go to class that day because if we didn't the school was in danger of being shut down due to lack of discipline and for students constantly neglecting to go to class or school in general.

It was a little different to be sitting in all my classes without Edward but after his recent . . . insane activity it was nice to be away from him for awhile. The peace was actually really nice. I could get used to this. Of course, as soon as I thought this the trouble started.

The door burst open, smashing against the wall, shattering the supposedly-shatter-proof glass. Edward stood in the doorway wearing a bright pink maternity shirt with "Vampire in Progress" stamped over the belly. He had also added large, fake breasts even after Emmett had spent all night popping the balloons with various pointy objects, or so Alice had told me that morning.

"Bella, we're out of peanut butter," Edward yelled, orange plastic fangs clacking in his mouth as he screamed, and spit, across the room. I just sighed, Alice had told me to expect this, and pulled a jar of peanut butter out of my backpack. By now the entire class had stopped and was staring either at me or Edward so I figured I couldn't get in trouble for disrupting class if I gave him the peanut butter. Edward lingered in the doorway with the strangest look of annoyance and insanity on his face, tapping his foot with his arms crossed over his chest.

When I was within arm's reach he grabbed the jar from my hand yelling, "Finally, a little service around here," and pulled out a twenty dollar bill that he shoved down my cleavage; quite a feat considering I was wearing a turtleneck. He marched across the room and shoved the windows open. "It's too warm in here," he announced and then squatted on the heater that sat under the window, balanced precariously with his stomach unbalancing him. He unscrewed the cap and plunged his whole hand into the jar and proceeded to cover his entire body in peanut butter. Again.

Once this started people seemed to regain some of their senses.

"Mr. Cullen, Miss Swan, what exactly is going on here?"

"Allergies," I replied calmly.

"What does that-?"

"Well Dr. Cullen, his father, is testing out a new brand of allergy medication on Edward. Clearly it has severe side effects that include delusion, confusion, and false pregnancies."

The teacher considered this for a moment and then asked, "What is he allergic to?"

Just then Edward started shrieking at the top of his lungs and pointing at someone standing in the doorway of the classroom. Everyone jumped and then turned to stare at Jessica who looked startled but pleased that Edward was noticing her. "Oh Edward, you came!" Jessica threw her backpack down onto the floor and started hurrying towards Edward, who was still perched on the windowsill.

There was some sniggering in the classroom but Jessica chose to ignore it. "I just knew that you wouldn't really skip school. Bella said you were out sick for the day but I knew you wouldn't be able to resist sneaking in to see me."

Edward continued screaming and then started running across people's desks, flinging binders, backpacks, even the occasional person at Jessica. "Be gone, she-devil!"

"He's allergic to Jessica," I explained. The teacher just nodded and kept staring at Edward, who was now fully coated in peanut butter.

Suddenly I saw something streak by the window outside. It stopped outside our classroom and danced around making "nya-nya" faces at Edward before running away again. It kind of looked like Emmett but he was wearing a giant-

"YO, a piece of toast," Edward yelled before running back through the classroom, over several more desks, out the window and after Emmett and his giant toast costume. The whole class turned to stare at me once Edward had disappeared. No one said anything for a moment.

"May I be excused," I asked.

"Yes," the teacher said. "Maybe that would be best."

So, I got out of class early went to go find Edward, who was standing in a circle along with the rest of the Cullens. "What were you thinking," I screamed at Edward, who ground the toe of his shoe into the dirt like he was a little boy being scolded. "You could have gotten us both in a lot of trouble! I want you to go straight home, young man, its naptime."

"Aw, but I'm not-"

"No 'buts'! Go, _all_ of you."

"Yes, ma'am," they said before trudging off to their cars and zooming off, cheering and celebrating. I skipped gym and then went straight to lunch, but found that the cafeteria food, which I had seen dropped on the floor only minutes earlier, was not very appetizing. I walked outside and was surprised to see Edward leaning against the side of the building; thankfully he didn't have a chest or a baby bump. But there was something different about him, something I couldn't quite put my finger on.

"Hey, Bella," Edward said. "You want to get out of here? Alice said you needed something different to wear on stage."

I sighed; it was so like Alice to make me change my outfit fifty times. "Fine. But please, Edward, will you help me pick out an outfit? I know if you do it that it won't be as horrible as if Alice does it."

Edward smiled and once again I felt the little prickle in a corner of my mind that this wasn't really Edward. "Of course, Bella. Shall we go?"

Jacob's POV

I can't believe bought this stupid disguise! I love her but she must be pretty stupid to fall for this. I blame that stupid Cullen, he's corrupted her mind. But then again, my disguise is pretty good. I spent all day working on it. And that thing about Alice? A lucky guess! But anyway, I walked Bells over to that stupid Cullen's silver Volvo, what's a little theft, right? I'll return it later. So we drove off to the mall and I let Bella lead the way.

"Alice will probably want us to go there first," she said, grabbing my arm and dragging me towards the first store.

BPOV

That's funny; I don't remember Edward having such strong, defined arm muscles. Maybe Emmett was drilling him before he came over here and that's why he dropped the pregnancy gag.

Jacob's POV

I don't know how any guy ever survives going shopping with a girl, even one so reluctant to shop as Bella. Honestly the only thing that kept me from screaming was getting to see Bella in her underwear, which happened to be pink and lacy.

BPOV

Three hours of shopping later and I had put together an outfit worthy of Alice and was weighing Edward down with as many packages as he could carry, which was all of them. It was funny, though, when I was shoving bags into his arms, he felt warmer than usual. Hot, almost. Oh well, maybe he had fed recently.

Jacob's POV

We drove back to the school but lingered in the car for a moment. Bella sighed, "I always hate getting ready for the shows. Someone strange always happens and I don't get to see you until we're on stage."

"Don't worry it'll all be okay, Bella love," I said. I _think_ I've heard him call her that. Evidently I was right because Bella didn't say anything.

"I know, and it'll all be over soon. We only have one more show after this." And then the most wonderful thing happened, she leaned over the seat and pressed her lips to mine and slid her hand onto my neck, pulling me closer.

BPOV

Is that . . . is that a pulse I feel beating in Edward's neck?

APOV

"My little Bella is all grown up," I sobbed when Bella showed me what she had picked out. The outfit was gorgeous; I couldn't have done much better myself. "You've done great, my little darling." I hugged her close. "Ewww, Bella, you stink. You smell like mutt."

"I'll get it," Esme yelled, rushing over and spraying Bella head-to-toe in air freshener. Bella disappeared momentarily in a cloud of air freshener and then reappeared, coughing, a moment later. We all sniffed. "Better," Esme decided, walking away to finish getting dressed. And then, it was time to go on stage. But not before we watched Jessica and Mike. We went to take our seats in the audience and I caught a glimpse of Edward talking to the lighting and music directors who had been helping with the show all along, changing the lights and adding music for each group. I was about to ask if anyone knew what he was doing when the lights clicked off and then a spotlight appeared on a long, flat rock, where Jessica was sprawled, trying to look beautiful.

Instead she just looked smuttier than usual. She wasn't wearing a bra, or a shirt, or even a bathing suit top. No. Instead she had just stuck two small sea shells over her chest, thinking somehow that looked attractive. Her hair looked matted and tangled but that didn't stop her from brushing it with a plastic shell comb and humming. Some parts of her hair were braided with flowers or seaweed but other parts were just bare. She had tried valiantly to pull off her mermaid effect by having green shimmering fabric wrapped tightly around her waist but it only succeeded in looking cheap. She hummed and flapped her "fin" around on her rock. She smelled heavily of salt water and had to keep readjusting her seashells.

And then Mike came out. A second spotlight hit the other half of the stage and a full white moon appeared in the background. Mike had covered himself in ugly fur, ripped jeans and the very barest bits of a white t-shirt. Unfortunately this emphasized his flabby stomach and man-boobs instead of a six-pack and pecs like it would on guys like my Jasper. We were all torn somewhere between hysteria because he chose a werewolf over a vampire and hysterical laughter, because he made one heck of a terrible werewolf. Next to me Edward was growling and Bella, completely misinterpreting his growl, was trying to comfort him.

"I know you don't like werewolves, Eddie, but it's Newton, and he's a terrible werewolf, so you can laugh. Come on, laugh!"

And that's when I put two and two together, that wasn't really Edward, it was that stupid mutt! I was about to blow his cover but suddenly I got a flash of what would happen in the costume contest if I left him alone. I snickered and settled back into my seat.

"HE-HE-HE," Jacob growled out forcefully.

I collapsed into a fit of giggles on Jasper's shoulder and Bella patted Jacob's shoulder. "Are you sick or something, Edward? That's a weird laugh."

"Its Jessica's perfume. I can smell it from here."

"Oh, okay then."

Poor little Bella, falls for all the little lies.

RPOV

Finally it was our turn to go on stage. The lights dimmed to create a more supernatural atmosphere and the announcer said, "Vand now ve introvuce ve Cullens Vampire Theme," in a terrible, fake Transylvania accent. I was out first, stepping into the spotlight I heard a hush of awe settle over the crowd, and with good reason, I was in a golden empire waist gown with green embroidery that came to a point at my mid-thigh in the front and to the floor in the back. I had no shoes, green arm bands and two lengths of gold and green chains. I gave them a tug and Emmett stumbled out from the other end of the stage, looking feral and dangerous, like when he was a newborn vampire.

Emmett wasn't wearing a shirt but his skin was far from bare. His chest and arms were covered in ancient-looking tattoos and scrapes. Bloody plastic fangs clicked in his mouth and there were handcuffs on his wrists. I dragged him over to the first spotlight and pulled his chains down to the bottom of a little platform, forcing him to his knees, before settling myself on top of the platform.

Next were Alice and Jasper. This time Jasper came out first in a billowy cream-colored shirt with a drawstring tie at the collar and black leather pants. A thin trail of blood is curving down his chest from two puncture marks in his chest. Alice came next in a tight black leather dress that trailed down to the floor with a red ribbon corset in the front that left part of her chest bare. She had long billowy sleeves and a folded down collar both trimmed with red to match her bright lips and the trail of blood leaking down her chin. She wrapped herself around Jasper and pulled him over to the second spotlight where she whispered in his ear and rubbed her fake fangs over his face like a stereotypical little vampire.

Esme was next and she was the original picture of a vampire's victim. Her caramel hair was curled in ringlets and she was wearing a light blue, billowy nightgown with a few bits of lace and white ribbon. Carlisle snuck up behind her, ever the elegant and classical vampire. He was in black suit pants, a black vest and a white shirt complete with a handkerchief pinned at his neck. He reached out with white gloved hands and grabbed Esme, one arm going around her waist and the other over her mouth, to silence her scream. He dipped her down and looked into her eyes for a moment before "sinking" his plastic fangs into her neck. When he resurfaced there was blood on his fangs and blood on her neck. Looking into her face, Carlisle wore a serene expression that, I figured, was similar to the one he wore when he first set eyes on her. He moved her over to their spotlight and we all waited for Bella. For some reason Alice couldn't stop laughing.

Bella clicked out onto stage in black kitten heels, a short red skirt, a white ¾ sleeve button down shirt and a black camisole. When she was in the center of the stage a figure melted out of the shadows behind her. Edward appeared in a black cloak, lined with red, and black pants and shirt. His cloak was pulled up over the lower half of his face like the stereotypical bad guy and when he reached Bella he enclosed them both within the cloak.

BPOV

My shriek of surprise was muffled by Edward's large cloak. He tied another cape around my shoulders and went to splash some talcum powder on my face to make me seem more vampire-like but something was bothering me. When he splashed my face with talcum powder my hands shot out and found his stomach. But in place of a flat, hard stomach, I found something else.

"What _is this_? More ab muscles than is humanly possible?" I was running my hands up and down, counting how many there were. I lost count after twenty, for the record. "AB MUSCLES _IN GENERAL_? YOU AREN'T EDWARD AT ALL!" I pushed the imposter away and the lights shot up on center stage, illuminating us. Up close I realized that the imposter was wearing a wig, white face and body paint, talcum powder and spray-on glitter. "Who are you?"

"Oh come on, Bells," A familiar voice said, peeling away the wig and rubbing off the glitter and face paint. "I thought you would have figured that out by now."

"Jacob?"

Jacob's POV

I think it's a little sad that Bella didn't recognize me until I had taken off all the paint and makeup and the wig and taken off my shirt. Anyway, I was ready to reveal my master plan that I had been working on all day long.

"Hit it," I yelled and suddenly a loud, techno beat started blaring out of fifty hidden speakers around the room. I started bouncing to the beat while everyone else just looked confused. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed the real Edward wandering onto the stage with that same stupid pregnant belly I had seen him with earlier. He whispered something to one of the other leeches but none of them appeared to know what was going on, except for the short one, and it didn't look like anyone was going to stop me.

"_You're in the woods with your vampire Edward Cullen. He's always whining and complaining, he's so sullen. 'Cause he doesn't get you're human like I do._" Bella just kept staring at me. I went to grab my first prop but found that it wasn't where it was supposed to be, so I improvised, I grabbed the first person I found in the audience, who happened to be that cheap werewolf, Newton, who was on just before us. Unfortunately I underestimated how much he weighed and nearly toppled off the stage trying to lift him. "_I'm at the gym, it's a typical Tuesday night. Lifting the kind of weights he doesn't like. And he'll never know your family like I do._" I pumped Newton over my head a few times like I was bench pressing him and then threw him into the crowd, who screamed and scattered. When I got to the line about family Charlie stumbled out from backstage, looked very confused and then was promptly pushed into the crowd on top of Newton.

"What's going on," Edward whispered. Apparently this got someone's attention long enough for them to realize that he still had a pregnant belly because suddenly there was a popping sound and the belly deflated.

"_But he sparkles, and I'm so hairy_," at this point sparkles and glitter, two completely different things for your information, exploded not only over Edward, but over the entire audience. "_He's so sexy and I'm so scary. Dreaming bout the day when you'll wake up and find, that you hate vampires_," I made an X with my arms and turned to face the stupid leech family and then made a heart and held it over my chest for the next line,_ "and love canines!_" There was a small smoke explosion after I finished the verse and when the smoke cleared I had a shaggy tail, dog ears, and a little extra fur, just enough to make me seem "werewolf-ish" for all the mortals who didn't know what we really look like.

And by now my dance moves were running full throttle and my back up singers had arrived. Several werewolves, dressed similarly to me, appeared out of the darkness and sang along to the chorus of the song. "_If you could see that I'm the wolf who understands you. Been here all along so why can't you see? You belong with me. You belong with me._" I sang the last line solo and stepped forward and captured Bella's face with my hands before moving back into my spotlight and starting the next verse.

"_Hangin' out in Forks, while he's in Italy. I can't help thinking this is how it ought to be. Howling at the moon thinkin' to myself, 'Hey, isn't Ed sleazy?' _" After this I stepped forward and took Bella's hand. "_And you've got a beauty that could light up this whole town. Haven't seen it since he brought those biters around. You say you're fine, I know you better than that. Hey, Whatcha doing with a sucker so wack?_" At the mere mention of the word "wack" a giant paddle swung out of nowhere and smacked Edward, who was sent flying into the crowd. He spent a minute or so scrambling back up onto the stage, glaring all the while.

"_He's so pale, I'm so tan. He's kind of bitchy and I'm all man. Dreaming bout the day when you'll wake up and find, that you hate vampires and love canines_." I made another X and another heart. I went through the chorus another two times and after the last "_You belong with me_." The lyrics died away and opened for a great guitar solo. I rushed forward to Bella and caught her hands in mine. "Bella, please, can't you see? This guy is terrible for you, I mean, he looks like a _foot_! Just remember, I'm always here for you whenever you're ready to dump that leech." The beat returned and I got ready for the last part of the song. Still holding Bella's hands I pulled her into the center of the spotlight and positioned myself on the subtle X on the floor.

"_Can't you see that I'm the one who understands you?_" I dropped to my hands and knees and looked up at Bella with the most pitiful expression I could muster. "_I'm down here on all fours, so why can't you see? You belong with me_." The beat picked up again and I jumped up, wrapping Bella in my arms and singing, "_If you could see that I'm the wolf who understands you. Been here all along, so why can't you see? You belong with me. If you could see that I'm the wolf who understands you. Been here all along, so why can't you see? You belong with me!_"

My main back-up singer gave one last "_you belong with me_," before they faded into the background. I gave Bella one last squeeze and then melted into the shadows as the first my spotlight, and then all the lights on stage dimmed. When they came back up everything and everyone was gone and the audience was stunned.

I heard the announcer say, "Well, shall we just go ahead and say the Cullens win again, not only for their costumes but for their impromptu concert?" There was a murmur of consent and then I was gone.

**Hey, did you like those lyrics? Do you know the song and want to hear it again? Do you not know the song, have no idea what we're talking about but are interested? GO HERE!**

**youtube .com/watch?v=gLcgRdSsuko  
**


	9. Cullen's Next Top Model

**Hey! This will be our last chapter of VOL because it's Halloween in the story and we're tired of writing this story. We had a lot of fun and if we said before that it would be longer, we changed our mind! Now there are some "spoilers" coming up later in this chapter and one of them (the one repeated with Newton and Jessica) was actually a spoiler to my dear Friend, or at least I think it was, maybe I'm wrong. Anywho, after this we'll be starting **Fun in the Sun** which is a return to the old ways of comedy and plotlessness. You'll find the link in E28D when we post. Now for the disclaimers!**

**We do not own the following: Twilight, Harry Potter, America's Next Top Model, Scooby Doo, Taylor Swift, Star Wars, Lion King, the things my dear friend Dylan (the red-head from a previous chapter) yelled to me in the hallways after seeing what we wrote about him, Kanye West, or (most importantly) BLUE'S CLUES. They are (c) their respective owners.**

Chapter 9 – Cullen's Next Top Model

Theme – School

APOV

We all piled into one car and drove off towards home. Everyone was talking about what a success this round was, even if that stupid mutt had shown up. Bella kept humming the tune to that stupid song and Edward couldn't resist singing along, even though the song was nothing but insults towards him. I, however, was fuming in between Jasper and Rosalie.

Jasper, being the kind, wonderful husband that he is, noticed immediately but I refused to say anything until we got home. Everyone was chatting and laughing as they got out of the car, completely forgetting about me and leaving me stranded inside Emmett's mile-high Hummer. Had I not been a vampire I would have been trapped, as it was I ended up pulling a Bella and falling out of the car.

I stormed into the living room and had to climb up onto a chair to get everyone's attention. "Today was a disaster. You guys are the worst models I have ever seen and if we want any chance of winning tomorrow's final round then we have to step it up a notch. Don't forget that because tomorrow is Halloween there will be a lot more competition than before. So, with that in mind, I would like to announce your new training camp: The Cullen's Next Top Model." I snapped my fingers and the lights disappeared, only to reappear a minute later and reveal a completely remodeled living room. All the regular furniture was gone and instead there was a long white panel with seven chairs. There was a long white runway leading up to the panel that took up most of the living room.

"This is the judging room," Jasper said, appearing beside me. After each challenge the models in training will come here and be judged. Then, at the end, the Cullen's Next Top Model will be chosen."

"Since we need a judge and since someone needs to pick the challenges and be surprised by them, I will not be participating. Now, for the first challenge!"

BPOV

I didn't know what this whole "Cullen's Next Top Model" thing was, but I knew that it would be crazy and, with our track record, dangerous. Sure enough when Alice corralled us into the backyard we saw a giant obstacle course that was drenched in mud.

"Alice I don't think this is a good idea, someone's going to get hurt. I'm going to be killed!"

"Well, that's why we have these!" Jasper rushed out with a rack of giant, white, poofy wedding dresses.

"You've got to be kidding me." She wasn't kidding. Five minutes later everyone, guys included, was lined up at the starting line in a giant white dress, ready to rush through the obstacle course. To make it fair, they all had to go at rational human speeds. Emmett, of course, planned to cheat. Alice held up an air gun and counted off.

"Ready, set, pineapple!"

Everyone jerked forward and dove into the first obstacle, which was a muddy crawl space with a thick net. Everyone, that is, except me. "Pineapple," I asked.

"Run faster, Bella or you'll lose! If Rosalie wins she's going to make you a stripper again!"

That spurred me into motion and I rushed in after everybody, finishing the first obstacle just after Esme, who was sobbing and trying to get the mud out of her dress. She tried to get mine but I slipped out of her grasp and she doused me in air freshener, having gotten frustrated and twisted the top off of the aerosol can.

"Watch out for her," Edward said, "She almost strangled me with my sash and she tore off a good chunk of chiffon from Jasper's dress. Looks better that way if you ask me. Honestly, why he thought-"

"Stop," I said, slapping my hand over Edward's mouth. "Stop while you can still pretend you're a guy. You sound like a girl when you talk about wedding dresses."

Edward frowned at me and overturned a bucket of glitter onto my head. "No, _you_sound like a girl when you talk about dresses. _I_sound like a woman." Then he picked me up and threw me over the second obstacle, or third if you include Esme, which happened to be a giant brick wall. I landed with a scream into a giant puddle of mud.

I sat up, sputtering and wiping mud out of my eyes. "Edward, there was a door!"

"I know," he said, walking through it calmly. "But it was more fun to throw you over. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a race to win!" And with that he sprinted, no skipped after Jasper, tackling him to the ground and attacking his dress. Gathering the many folds of my dress I trudged through the mud and past Edward and Jasper, now crying that Edward was ruining his dress, and caught up with Carlisle who was attempting to swing across a giant pit of mud on a rope. I watched as he ran and landed safely on the other side. He sent the rope back for me and I got a running start.

Unfortunately, when I tired it, a giant hammer came out of nowhere and punched me, sending me flying into the mud. "What was that," I screamed.

"Oh, and Bella wipes out," Alice said from the clean, mud-free sidelines. I chucked a handful of mud at her but she dodged easily. "Better hurry up, Bella, you're falling behind!"

Sure enough ahead of me I could see Carlisle and Rosalie fighting to see who would claim the second inflatable tube and sail down the "Slide of Doom" or so the giant sign proclaimed. I found myself stopping to wonder how all this could possibly exist or where Alice had managed to find all this. What happened once they were done using it? I doubt any of it would ever be used again. Nonetheless, the threat of being dressed as a stripper spurred me into action. I grabbed the tube and raced down the slide, face first. Unfortunately I got a little too much air and ended up crashing into the giant padded wall at the end of the slide instead of sliding through the handy hole. So I was forced to trudge around the edge of it and run towards Alice.

"Aww, too bad, Bella. Emmett is our winner!"

I panted and stared at Emmett, who was laughing and throwing flowers in the air. Strangely his dress was perfectly white. "Emmett, did you cheat?"

"Bella, I'm appalled! I can't believe you'd accuse me of something so lowly!"

"Did you?"

"Yes."

"Emmett," Alice said, "What theme would you like to do for this week?"

"Well," he said, "As much as I love helping Bella improve her tomato impression, my love for seeing Rosalie in a cheerleader uniform is stronger. So, we'll be doing a stereotypical School Theme!"

"Very good," Alice said. "Esme, since you're the only one who failed to complete the challenge," I turned around and discovered that everyone else was now lined up next to me, muddy and mangled but alive, except Esme who was still crying over the mud. "Esme, you've been eliminated and you are our newest judge!"

EsPOV

My dress, my beautiful dress! Ruined. At least I still had my air fresheners. I had already doused Bella in a half a bottle and was now circling everyone else, spraying air freshener and straightening the dresses. Bella was already scrambling out of hers and Rosalie was peeling it off her skin, wiping off the mud as she went. Edward was unzipping Carlisle but Jasper and Emmett were judging each others dresses and then swapping them, trying to see whose was better. I sighed, my sons, the fashionistas.

I turned and headed inside, eager to get out of my muddy dress and spend a good hour or so vigorously scrubbing the mud, which was beginning to dry even as I walked, off of my body.

EmPOV

I saw Esme heading inside and I realized that she hadn't really tried at all during the obstacle course. And if there's one thing I hate, its people who just give up without trying and without a doubt, Esme gave up. So I put my design plans on hold for a moment and corralled Carlisle, Edward and Jasper.

"Hey guys, what do you think about playing a little prank on Esme?"

"I don't know," Carlisle said, "I know my wife and she's going to be royally pissed at us for pulling a prank on her. And I'm going to be the target of that rage."

"Aw come on, Carlisle, don't be such a-"

"You didn't let me finish. She's going to be royally pissed, so let's make it good."

"Alright," we cheered.

"Now," Jasper said. "How about we-"

EsPOV

I headed upstairs and painstakingly striped out of my, now ruined, wedding dress, which proved to be very difficult because it had a corset back and the dried mud had made the already fitted dress, all the tighter. Finally, though, I was free of the dress and I stepped into the shower. I turned on the faucet . . . only to discover there was no water. Panic shot through me but I tried to stay calm, it was just a fluke. I tried it again, no luck. I tried the sink in our bathroom, still no luck.

_It must be our bathroom_, I thought, _there must be a leak in the pipes._ So I threw on a robe and went back downstairs and outside, to find Carlisle, who was talking with Edward by the side of the mud pit.

"Carlisle," I called, "I think there's something wrong with our bathroom. There's no water in the sink or in the showers. Could you-" As soon as I reached Carlisle he grabbed me and practically tore off my robe. "Carlisle! This isn't the time for that, you're covered in mud, and it's-"

Before I could finish my sentence I felt Emmett push me and I crashed face-first into the mud pit again, the disgusting goop covering my entire body. I pushed myself up and gasped, wiping the mud from my eyes. I got to my feet, with some difficulty, and stormed over to the edge of the pit, ready to give Carlisle and Emmett a piece of my mind. Unfortunately, before I could reach them, Jasper got to me and set a giant heat lamp on me, instantly drying the mud.

"Where on Earth did you find a giant heat lamp," Edward asked, clearly as confused as I was.

Jasper looked down and rubbed his toe in the grass, "I like to sit under it and pretend I'm a human girl who's going tanning," he mumbled. We all stared at him for a moment and then slowly turned away.

"Carlisle," I growled. "I'm going to kill you!"

CPOV

Now, some people might call me a bad husband. I prefer to be known as a good prankster. And, like any good prankster, I knew how to distract my victims before I was beaten into a pulp. So I knew that all I had to do was run past a bathroom and Esme would be instantly drawn to it, her desire to wash off all the mud greater than the desire to murder me, at least for the moment. Sure enough, the first bathroom we passed distracted her and she rushed inside.

EsPOV

None of the showers in the house were working! Granted we had rarely had an occasion to use them before, frankly we only used them out of habit or sheer boredom, but they had always worked in the past! After trying to use all the showers, I turned my attention to the sinks, none of which were working. So I was forced to try out some more . . . unconventional methods.

BPOV

Alice had hosed me and Rosalie off before she let us inside and brought us upstairs to work. She and Rosalie had set to work pulling out patterns and fabrics and getting whatever they could ready before the next challenge started and Alice had sent me to do some costume laundry. She had loaded up a basket with old costumes or things that she thought we might use and asked if I could throw them in the washing machine, since I was the only one that used it, anyway.

So I headed downstairs and over to the barely-used washing room. Unfortunately I wasn't prepared for what waited for me inside of the washing machine. I opened the lid and a giant mud monster popped out at me, waving its brown, cracking hands at me and moaning. I screamed and dumped the entire basket on laundry on its head. The monster disappeared for a moment and I considered trying to get a better look at it when it popped up again. I screamed again and this time threw some laundry detergent at it, hitting it in the chest and leaving a large blue stain on its skin.

The monster moaned and looked like it was trying to talk but all that came out was a "_mmmmmmmrrrrrrrrr_" sound. Panicking, I turned and ran from the room as fast as I could, only tripping over three things as I went, a record for me, considering my hysteria. The thing chased after me, though much slower it somehow was never far behind me each time I looked back, and tripped for that matter. I didn't know how to fight mud monsters but something that Esme once said to me was ringing in my head.

"Bella, if there should ever come a time when there is a rabid mud monster running through my house, even if it's a dried mud monster, there's only one way to defeat it. Water. You can flood the whole house if you want, just make sure it doesn't leave any stains on my carpet."

So I detoured through the kitchen and grabbed the spray hose from the sink and aimed it at the monster. I squeezed but no water came out, I turned the faucet on, nothing. Panicking again I resumed running, barreling out the front door and around the side of the house.

"_Turn the water on_," I yelled as I ran, continually throwing rocks and flowers and anything else I could find at the monster behind me. And then all I heard was a giant wave of water crashing against the side of the house.

APOV

Now that Esme had been properly drowned, I felt like it was time to start the second challenge.

"Alright everybody, it's time for your newest challenge." Esme toweled off and plopped herself down in the second chair at the judges table. I joined her and motioned for everyone else to line up at the end of the runway. "This challenge will test your ability to take beautiful pictures in strange situations." I snapped my fingers, "Let's go!" A giant movie-style wind fan was wheeled into the room along with six big bowls of chocolate pudding.

Edward grimaced; he had had a lot of experience eating human food the first time Bella had her period and stayed at our house. Bella smiled and licked her lips, taunting the rest of my family because they didn't eat food. But nonetheless, everyone sat down in front of the camera and grabbed a spoon.

Bella was first and as soon as the fan was turned on she was propelled backwards out of her seat and she hit the wall, still clutching the bowl to her chest. She forced the spoon into the pudding and tried to raise it to her face, splattering chocolate everywhere. She repeated this several more times until the force of the fan was blowing all the skin away from her face and pudding flew into mouth and eyes. Instantly choking and blinding her.

Eddie was next, and he glowered down at the bowl in his arms. "If I eat it really quickly then can I stop," he asked.

"Yes."

"Good." He cleared his face of all emotion and waited for the fan to start. Unlike Bella he was not propelled backwards but he tipped the bowl down and poured all the pudding into his mouth at once, or at least he tried to, most of it missed his mouth and splattered on his face and the other half hit Bella, who hadn't been able to escape the wind fan fast enough.

"My eyes, oh man, now I know how Newton feels!" She rolled around on the ground clutching her eyes and refused to get up, even after all the pudding was gone and Edward had finished his photo session. The other shots weren't much better. Emmett got pudding up his nose and went on a two-minute rampage before collapsing next to Bella, Jasper appeared in Rosalie's cat suit and lapped at the pudding while Edward stumbled around, clutching his stomach before finally falling into a heap along with Emmett and Bella. Jasper quickly joined them, thinking for some strange reason that they were building a human pyramid. And Carlisle turned his skills test into a romantic, but illegal, photo shoot with Esme. The two sat at a table and "sipped" the pudding from a single glass, several fake guns and knives were evident, as well as the lifeless bodies of Emmett, Edward, Bella and Jasper. Rosalie grit her teeth and gnawed at spoon for a full minute before I turned the wind fan off.

"Alright," I said. "Since Esme is biased against Carlisle," I glared at the two of them but they just smiled brightly and unhelpfully. "He won't be winning this round. Instead that honor goes to . . . Edward." I held up his photo, a surprisingly professional shot of him pouring the pudding and glaring at the camera. "Edward for winning this round you get to decide what Bella's costume will look like this round."

Edward smiled evilly at Bella, as if it was her fault he had to eat pudding. "Oh good," he said, "I've got a great idea."

"You _do_ know that it has to be within the School Theme, right," Bella said nervously, attempting to derail his train of thought.

"Oh, I know." Bella gulped.

"And I'm afraid that Emmett, you've been eliminated."

Emmett screamed in fake agony and fell to the ground, smashing his fist into the floor over and over again. "Why, oh God, _why?_" He gave an enormous shudder and then hopped back to his feet. "Oh well, I had a good run."

The nice thing about Edward winning this round was that he was able to flash me what he wanted Bella to wear. I smiled at him and we shared a laugh before I dragged everyone into the living room for the other challenges. The rest of the challenges flew by quickly, one person being failing after another. Carlisle triumphed in the "Tomato Tap" where you had to tap dance while withstanding a barrage of tomatoes. His years of tap dance experience helped him win the round, and entertain the rest of us. He was very disappointed, however, when Edward was eliminated, he'd been teaching Edward to tap dance for decades. After a short break where he planned Esme's outfit, we resumed the challenges.

In the next skills test, running in oiled stiletto heels and trying to beat spilled molasses to the finish line, Carlisle lost his cool and snapped the shoes in two after falling more times than Bella coming in last, mainly because he fell and crashed into Bella, sending her sliding into a third place victory. Grumbling, Carlisle took his place at the table next to me, Esme, Emmett, and Edward. Rosalie, unsurprisingly, came in first, narrowly beating out Jasper, and we took a quick break to design Emmett's costume.

Then came the "Birthday Shock" challenge where Rosalie, Jasper and Bella had to force down slices of birthday cake while receiving electric shocks. Bella took a deep breath and gobbled down handfuls of cake, spasming each time she received a shock. When she finally finished her cake there was one last shock and then she collapsed on the ground, twitching but safe. Jasper attacked his cake, face first and sat there for a moment, his face hidden by his hair and the plate, jerking each time there was a shock but emerging ten seconds later with chocolate in his hair and on his face and a clean plate. Rosalie took one look at the mess Jasper and Bella had made and sat right down at the Judges Table, not even bothering to compete. Jasper won that round and I smiled at what he had planned for me to wear.

BPOV

Finally Alice said it was the final challenge. I wasn't looking forward to whatever she had planned, especially when she led us out into the backyard and I saw a giant slip-n-slide that spanned the entire yard. Punctuating various points of the slip-n-slide were parallel bars, balance beams and trampolines. I gulped, imagining all the horrible injuries that were sure to befall me should I dare attempt this. Of course this didn't matter to Alice or Jasper, or anyone other than Edward, really. But even Edward looked excited. I caught him making a bet with Esme around the side of the house and exchanging little packets of something that smelled suspiciously like potpourri.

"Now I think that the contestants should be given a chance to study the course by themselves and plan out their routines," Alice said, turning and heading inside, followed by everyone but Jasper and I. For a few minutes we studied the course and I tried to map out a simple walking course so that I would be able to walk away with all my limbs attached and hopefully not broken. After a little while, though, we got bored and headed back inside where there was apparently a heated fight going on in the living room between Edward and Emmett.

"Darth Vader is Luke's father!"

"Oh come on, I was about to watch Star Wars," Esme complained.

"Snape kills Dumbledore!"

"I just started the Half-Blood Prince," Carlisle complained. He threw the book angrily at Edward's head and then sulked very childishly in his seat.

"How long has this been going on," I asked Rosalie, who was relaxing in a chair across the room. "And, _what_ is going on?"

"It's a spoilers contest," she explained. "They're trying to come up with the biggest spoiler they can. They've been at it for about ten minutes now."

"During se-"

"_Emmett don't you dare_," Alice yelled. Cutting off whatever he was about to say with an icy glare. He just smiled and chose his next spoiler.

"Scar kills Mufasa!"

Across from him Edward froze, his eyes widened and his mouth dropped open in shock. A high pitched whimper escaped his throat and his knees gave out. He lay sobbing tearlessly on the floor with his hands over his face. Emmett's face glowed with a snarky satisfaction and he looked very satisfied with his win. There wasn't much I could do to help Edward but I had to try.

"Oh yeah," I yelled, unfazed by any of their outdated spoilers. "Well in Blue's Clues, _Blue is a girl!_"

I didn't expect them to know what Blue's Clues was, or even for them to be surprised by this, it seemed like such a small thing so I was shocked when their turned as one to face me and screamed, at the top of their vampire lungs, "_WHAT DID YOU SAY?_" The sheer force of the yell sent me flying against the door to the backyard, shattering the windows and several glass vases spilling water and flowers all over the floor.

"You . . . didn't . . . know," I asked feebly.

"_NO_," they yelled, causing the door to pop open and sending me flying into the backyard. I tumbled head over heels through the yard and finally rolled up the little ramp at the start of the gymnastics course. I went flying into the air and could just barely glimpse the Cullens assembled by the back door of the house, so at least there would be witnesses who could tell the paramedics just what happened. I flailed blindly for anything to grab onto and finally my hands found a pole that I nearly snapped in half. I swung around on it for a moment and then found myself in a handstand on top of it. Realizing that I was backwards and eight times more likely to hurt myself than if I was frontward so I quickly moved my hands and spun around to face front. And then I was falling again and, to my horror, my hands slipped off the bar.

Through an extreme stroke of luck I managed to land on another, shorter bar and balanced there for a single heartbeat before I fell again, flipping once through the air and then landing on a small trampoline. The trampoline launched me up and I split my legs wide so they wouldn't slap against he pummel horse in front of me. There were several more agonizing flips, dips, jumps and twirls and then I finally landed on the other side of the course, somehow landing in a perfect dismount with my feet together. I raised my arms weakly and turned to look at the Cullens.

They all stared at me for a moment and then Alice turned to Jasper. "Think you can beat that," she asked.

Jasper stared at me for a moment, looked me up and down and traced my path with his eyes. He sighed. "No, I'm afraid there's no way I could hope to beat that. You win, Bella. I surrender."

"I win," I repeated numbly. "I . . . win. I win. I win!" I cheered and danced around for a moment before stopping dead in my tracks and staring at Alice. "What do I win? Is it something bad? Please tell me it's not something bad."

"No, for once it isn't. Bella, you win one wish. You can ask us for anything, anything at all and we cannot refuse you, unless of course it's impossible."

I thought about this for a moment. "Any wish at all, you say?" I smiled evilly; I might have a little fun with this one.

APOV

I didn't really have time for Bella to sit around and plot evilly, though I was glad to see she was finally embracing her inner Cullen. No, I had many costumes to make and very little time to make them, not that it really mattered, but everyone had something different they wanted for their partner and then some people needed to be surprised and some people were trying to find out what was planned and it was chaos. Soon enough, however, everything was done and we headed off to school.

There were a lot more people entering the contest now so the locker rooms were much more crowded than usual and we kept accidentally bumping into people while we got dressed. I caught a thought from Edward and chuckled. "Remember that red-head kid Emmett used for a dance partner all those days ago?"

"No," Bella said. "When was-"

"Well he's surrounded himself with his friends and is avoiding Emmett like the plague. He keeps shooting evil glares over at him." I paused. "Oh, and screaming '_why_' and '_por qué'_ over and over again." I chuckled at that while everyone else got dressed and generally ignored me. Once we had all changed we went outside and found the boys waiting for us.

"Bella, do you think I could go sit down now? I want to see some of the costumes."

"Okay, sure, Edward. You know, you don't need to ask me," she said, confusion clear on her face. "What's with him," she asked after he left.

Everyone except me shrugged. I laughed, already aware of Edward's evil scheme, and loving every minute of it. I led everyone out into the audience and made sure that I was next to Edward and that Jasper was next to Bella. With any luck he could work some of his magic and we could have a nice little scene just in time for Newton and Jessica to come out on stage.

"Bella," Edward said with a falsely enthusiastic, and slightly British, voice, "Is it okay if I sit here?"

"Yes," Bella said, somewhat suspicious.

"Bella," he said again, "Can we take a big group picture after this is done?"

"Yes."

"Bella? Can we add the picture to the scrapbook?"

"Yes."

"Bella? Can we hand out candy to the kids who are Trick-or-Treating?"

"Yes."

"Bella? Can we have an impromptu Halloween Party?"

"Yes," now Bella was starting to get a little annoyed and was just watching the couples on stage. At the moment there was a blonde girl with a guitar and a formal dress who was singing some familiar country song and who was promptly interrupted by a black guy in dark glasses with a microphone who "Just wanted to say . . ." something about another singer.

"Bella? Can we carve the pumpkin we have back at the house?"

"Yes," Bella said, the irritation clear in her voice, now fueled by Jasper, who winked at me.

"Bella? Can we put a candle inside and make it into a Jack-O-Lantern?"

"Yes!"

"Bella? Can we call it a Vampire-O-Lantern?"

"Yes!" By now Bella was half screaming and some people around us were starting to look at her with a worried expression and moving away.

"Bella?"

"_What_," she screeched. "What is it? What could you possibly want?"

"Bella? Can we carve the pumpkin to look like a vampire?"

Bella just goggled at him for a moment, basking in the sheer stupidity of Edward. "Yes, fine, whatever. Just do whatever you want! I don't care; I'm not in charge of what you do so stop asking! Just do whatever you want."

Edward pretended to be hurt and turned away from her. He winked at me and I knew that this wasn't the end of things. We watched the next few couples in turn and I gave him a little nudge when Newton and Jessica were about to come out on stage. He nodded and poked Jasper in the knee, moving so quickly that Bella didn't notice. Jasper got the signal and got ready to turn up the juice on Bella.

Edward cleared his throat and leaned over just as Jessica made it to the end of the stage in a magenta colored dog suit with floppy ears and polka dots. "Bella? Do you think I could-"

"Yes," Bella screeched, "Yes! Stop asking me questions, what is _wrong_ with you? What do you think you're accomplishing by asking me all these stupid questions? Are you trying to piss me off? Are you trying to break up with me or something? And _you-_" she turned her attention to the stage where Newton had joined Jessica wearing an almost identical costume except his was blue. "What do you think you're doing? _Blue's Clues_ are you kidding me? You're both look like morons up there! Don't you know _anything_? I can understand these guys not knowing because they live under a rock but you guys, I expected better of you!"

"What are you talking about Bella," Jessica sneered. "Hi Edward," she waved. Edward just glared at her, taking out his anger about Emmett's spoiler on her.

"_Blue is a girl and Magenta is a boy, you morons!_"

And with that she ran up to the stage, jumping over, crashing into and generally crawling over everyone who still stood in her way. Once she reached the stage she scrambled up punched Newton in the face, sending him spinning backwards and ultimately off the stage, landing in the lap of a very unfortunate Dylan who looked disgusted and then lifted Newton up over his head and threw him away like a bag of trash.

"Now can we _please_ start the group round so I can get on stage and get home?"

There was silence for a moment and then the announcer came back on the speaker. "Well . . . I think it's time for the Groups round and I would like to announce that Taylor Swift and Kanye West are the winners of the couples round, congrats guys."

We sat through the Group Round, watching Scooby Doo, Harry Potter and various other group costumes, both original and cliché, and a few that only Bella recognized. Finally, though, it was our turn. We were gathered backstage and ready to go on and get everything over and done with. We all had fun but it was time to switch to something else.

Rosalie went out first, bouncing around cheerfully in a classic blue and white striped cheerleader's uniform with a pleated skirt and cheer shorts underneath, and a crop top with a big Spartan logo for the school. "Are you ready for some fun everybody?" The crowd cheered enthusiastically, well it was mostly the guys in the crowd but they were enthusiastic nonetheless. "Okay! Let's go!" She picked up a big circle with thin paper stretched across it and printed with the Spartan logo again. "Meet your Quarterback, Emmett!"

Emmett burst through the circle with a loud cheer and yelled out some nonsensical football phrases before chucking a football into the audience, and accidentally hitting Newton in the head, causing him to drop his ice pack and fall back onto the floor. Emmett was dressed in blue and white as well with "The Hunk" written in big block letters across the back of his shirt. I laughed as I remembered the big "Hotties vs. Studs" football game we had staged during the crazy week when the Cullens found out what happens to me **Every 28 Days**. He laughed and held up the other side of the circle as Rosalie introduced Carlisle and Esme.

"And here are you wonderful teachers!"

Esme came out first, looking beautifully old fashioned with her hair tied back in a classic ponytail and a small handheld chalkboard with a piece of chalk. She had on a simple black jumper dress with a white blouse with puffy ¾ sleeves and simple black flats. She looked the picture of a classic teacher, kind and motherly but determined. Carlisle was next, looking less serious. He was the chemistry teacher in a white lab coat with several burns, goggles, a vial and a flask and a little nametag. He mixed to the two liquids and it exploded in his face, a fake explosion of course but it covered his face with soot that Esme tenderly wiped away with a handkerchief.

"Here are your students," Rosalie yelled.

Jasper came out first this time and held out his arm for Alice. He was wearing a navy blue uniform with simple pants and a long sleeved top with white hems and trimming and a white tie left hanging around his neck. His shirt was unbuttoned to around the middle of his chest, revealing smooth pectorals and he had an air of cool indifference. Alice hopped out next, jumping to clear the bottom of the hoop. She had on a little navy blue pleated skirt and a white long sleeved top with a little sailor flap that hung over her shoulders. She had on blue knee high socks and little white shoes that were the girl version of the ones Jasper wore. She also had a blue beret-like hat with a white ribbon around the edge. She linked her arm with Jasper's and took a spot on the edge of the stage.

"And what school would be complete without nerds," Rosalie asked.

I sniggered as Bella stumbled out onto the stage, for once a blessing instead of a curse. She had on plain Mary Jane shoes and white knee high socks, although one was pure white and one was a cream color. The cream one was crumpled down by her ankle and the white one was stretched up as high as it could go. She had on a red plaid skirt that went to her knees and a white button shirt that was almost entirely tucked into her skirt. It was buttoned incorrectly and there was a pocket protector full of different colored pens and her thick black glasses were taped together in the middle with a lot of masking tape. Her hair was thrown into the messiest ponytail I had ever seen and she just looked like a nerd.

Edward wasn't much better, though I swear I saw several girls swoon in the audience. His hair was slicked back with way too much grease and his white button down shirt, complete with pocket protector and pens, was buttoned correctly but was covered partially by the large red suspenders. His pants were red plaid and were just a bit too short, revealing his white socks and ratty shoes. Like Bella he had thick black glasses that were taped together over the bridge of his nose. He had given himself a false overbite and talked with a whiny nasally voice.

"Haaaaaaaaaw, I have a little announcement to make." He made a disgusting noise as he "cleared his throat" and pretended not to notice Emmett pounding his fist into his hand. "We're going to be taking a little family vacation to a tropical island over the break, and it's all thanks to my Bella."

"_What_," Bella yelled, forgetting to make her voice annoying. Her mouth was hanging open, revealing a mouth full of fake braces.

"I love you, Bella," Newton yelled from the audience. Bella wrinkled her nose at him.

"Well, Bella, you were so kind as to give me control of your one wish so I decided to use it on a family vacation that, of course, you're attending. Yep, we're going to an exotic island and we're going to have some **Fun in the Sun**."

Bella gaped at us for another few seconds and then collapsed in a fit of tears.


End file.
